


Silver Fire

by AdmirableMonster (Mertiya)



Series: The Hand of the Mighty [5]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fëanor has the Silmarils, Canon-Typical Violence, Fateswap, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Roleswap, kind of a mash-up of Eregion with Beren and Luthien, or perhaps more accurately, silvergifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:48:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 21,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26054476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/AdmirableMonster
Summary: For long years, all that Tyelpe has known is the great fortress his grandfather built up to house the precious Silmarils that the Dark Lord returned to him.  He's happy to do his part as Fëanáro's forgemaster, working to defeat the forces of evil, but he sometimes wonders what it would be like outside in Middle Earth, beneath the stars.  When a mysterious emissary of the Valar appears, Tyelpe is only too ready to fall under his spell.  But does Annatar truly care for him?Although a continuation of the Hand of the Mighty series, the fic largely stands alone.
Relationships: Annatar/Celebrimbor | Telperinquar, Morgoth Bauglir | Melkor/Sauron | Mairon
Series: The Hand of the Mighty [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1858411
Comments: 116
Kudos: 115





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title from -- you guessed it -- the lay of leithian

The wind whistled through the empty fortress, laden with slushy snow and redolent with the scent of wet earth. A figure stood upon the crumbling wall, his black cloak rippling in the wind. With his hood thrown back, his long, red-gold hair streamed like a banner; gold glinted on his pointed ears. 

Another figure joined him, then, grey-cloaked and almost seeming to fade into existence from the whirling snow. He wore a pointed hat and leaned upon a twisted wooden stave, on top of which was set a white gem, faintly glowing. “Do not dwell too much in the past,” the second figure said to the first.

“I do not,” Mairon replied, running a hand through his long hair. “I am thinking very much of the future right now, Olórin, believe me.” His eyes gleamed with barely-suppressed flame.

“I prefer Gandalf these days,” responded his companion, giving him a sidelong glance from underneath his bushy eyebrows. “And when you say you think of the future…”

Mairon’s head tilted up, his eyes narrowing, at the sight of the black glass tower that lay beyond the ruin, so tall now that what was left of Angband lay within its shadow. “In the future, Fëanáro’s tower lies in ruins,” he said sweetly.

“I do hope you are not thinking too strongly of vengeance,” Gandalf chided him lightly. “Remember where you would be without mercy, O Sauron the Defiler.”

Blowing out a breath into the chill air, Mairon’s shoulders slumped a little. “I know, old friend. But this place was a home. My people lived here. If I take a little sweet joy out of the thought of that great tower toppled, is that so vindictive?”

“Perhaps not,” Gandalf assented. “I, too, would see it thrown down. It ruins the shape of the skyline.”

Mairon laughed at that. “The question, of course, is how,” he said meditatively. “I take it that you have thoughts? You are so very definite about wishing it to be thrown down.”

Gandalf tugged at his beard. “It seems to me that if the Silmarils are taken from Fëanáro, his madness will fade with time. We have seen such things before, have we not?”

As he often did, Mairon found himself fingering the rough scar lines about his right wrist, slowly flexing the hand that was and yet was not his own. His fëa inhabited it, but he could still feel a trace of Curumo’s in it as well, which was a peculiar feeling. By now, at least, he had learned how to use it so that he was almost as skillful in the forge as he had ever been. “Yes,” he said softly. “But is there anyone for love of whom Fëanáro would give up the terrible oath his sons have told us of?”  
“That I do not know,” Gandalf replied. “But it still seems to me to be our best hope.”

“And how do you propose that the Silmarils should be taken?” Mairon asked, staring up at the dark tower whose top was lost above the high grey-white clouds. “I do not think Fëanáro will be so easy to dispossess.”

“I shall journey about Middle Earth for a time,” Gandalf told him meditatively. “To find some unassuming mortal who may enter that dread tower and perhaps cast the gems away. Into the sky may be best, for it rises so high I can only imagine it would be a simple matter.”

Scoffing, Mairon looked at him. “A simple matter? To deceive Fëanáro, enter the fortress, take up some gems that burn you if you touch them, somehow manage to avoid being ensnared by their beauty and toss them away? If that is your idea of simple, it’s a wonder that the entirety of Arda has not yet been reinvented according to your design.”

“Perhaps I don’t wish it to be,” Gandalf chuckled, then patted Mairon on the shoulder. “No, no, but I have faith I will be able to discover someone capable of it, for all that. You don’t know what strength lurks in the hearts of mortals and Elves.”

Forebearing to argue about this, Mairon simply looked down at what remained of Angband, the great gates flung open and hanging on their hinges, the walls with huge divots missing, scored and pitted with fire and ash. To retreat from Angband had cost him a great deal, but to try and hold it would have been madness, and he could not have countenanced the deaths it would have brought about. They were his people, his and Melkor’s. He would not throw their lives away for nothing. 

Gandalf was not wholly wrong. To cast away the Silmarils was the best hope of combatting this new rising darkness. Of course, Mairon thought to himself, he did not believe that there was any mortal or Elf with the strength to do what was necessary, but what did that matter? He had been wrong before, and in any case, with two of them working on their own schemes, it was likelier that one of them would succeed. “Perhaps not,” was all he said aloud. Gandalf gave him a curious look.

“How easily you have been convinced,” he said dryly. “I must be going, but Mairon?”

“Yes?”

“Please don’t do anything foolish.”

Mairon gave him an innocent smile. “Oh, I won’t do anything foolish, old friend, don’t worry.”

Grunting, Gandalf headed for the still intact stairs down the outer wall. Mairon watched him go until his form disappeared into the blowing whiteness. Another presence, which had been hanging in the air for some time now as he and the other Maia conversed, now materialized at his shoulder.

“I would like to second Olórin’s request,” Melkor’s voice murmured in his ear, chilly as the wind that swirled at his command. His breath, though, was warm, and Mairon leaned into his embrace eagerly.

“What makes you think I am planning to do anything, foolish or not?” he asked.

His master’s strong arms tightened around him. “Because I know you very well, Little Flame.”

“If you order me to wait, I can do nothing but wait,” Mairon pointed out.

“Oh, you can. You can speak.” Melkor bit down on his neck, none too gently, and Mairon moaned. “And I feel that we might as well skip the inevitable monthlong series of arguments and sulking. Don’t you agree?”

“I wasn’t going to say it, my lord.”

Melkor licked a stripe up his throat in the wake of the bites. “All I ask is that you take great care.” A shudder ran through him. “I will not lose you. I cannot lose you. My precious.”

“Yes, my lord,” Mairon told him, and he turned in his arms to allow his lips to be kissed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tyelpe is Real Gay.

Tyelpe yawned and ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. He had probably been overdoing it at the forge, but he wanted to finish the repairs Fëanáro had asked for on the armor of Ancalima Osto’s guard so that he could get back to something that he actually enjoyed. As he hammered dents out of a breastplate, he thought about the necklace he had been designing before the recent flurry of battles. It would be made of delicate silver, to better catch the light of the Silmarils—that beauteous light that suffused the whole of Ancalima Osto. Fëanáro had worked out a clever scheme of mirrors to reflect their silver from the very top of the tower all over it. Yes, silver would catch that heavenly light well, and Tyelpe thought that three filigree flowers would be a subtle tribute.

“Telperinquar?” Lómion’s voice pulled him sharply out of his reverie.

“Ah—yes?” The younger, darker-skinned Elf was standing awkwardly in the door of the forge. He was always hesitant when he was alone, ducking his head as if he expected a blow to fall. Tyelpe hated to see it and wished he could do more for the boy, but he vanished into the shadows so easily—the only person in the fortress whose company he seemed to keep was Huan’s.

“You’re asked for at dinner,” Lómion explained. “I was sent to fetch you.”

“At dinner? Is it dinnertime?” Tyelpe said vaguely. “I’m not particularly hungry.”

“It’s by order of the high king,” Lómion told him. “That’s all I know, though.”

Tyelpe sighed, seeing his dreams of spun silver melting away as if they had been put to the forge themselves, but rose. “Then of course I shall come, if I am so bid.”

He walked deliberately a few feet away from Lómion, and he was pleased to see after a few moments the younger Elf had relaxed, at least enough to stop holding his head so low down. “You know,” Tyelpe said conversationally, “If you’d like to spend some time working in the forge one of these days, I’m sure that could be arranged.”

There was a pause, a rather long one, but then Lómion cleared his throat and said, “I—would like that. If it wouldn’t be a bother.”

“I can always use an extra pair of hands,” Tyelpe told him cheerfully, which was true. “Untrained hands turn into trained ones fast enough.”

When they reached the vast dining hall that was used for feasting, Lómion slipped away, leaving Tyelpe to make his way up to his place at one of the three tables that circled the foremost table where Fëanáro and his sons ate. The head of the table was empty, as was the seat at its right hand side, which had remained empty for some time now. Tyelpe tried very hard not to think about why that was, because it was just no good getting sad and angry and frustrated when there was nothing that could be done. He had a duty to keep as many people safe as possible.

When Fëanáro entered, all heads turned in his direction, and a soft buzz of conversation spread immediately throughout the dining hall, for he was not alone. Walking with him and seeming to shine with some kind of pale inner light, was a slender, white-clad figure. He wore a crown of white flowers in his fluffy hair, just like the flowers that Tyelpe had meant to model his new design on, pale, luminous flowers that bloomed in the gardens by the silvery light of the Silmarils. They were loose and cup-like, those flowers, and they framed the face of the newcomer very becomingly. He looked young and hesitant, Tyelpe thought, and— _oh_ —but he was beautiful.

His hair shone like silver wire in the silver light, but as Tyelpe squinted, for a moment he thought he saw some gleam of red, as if the light of the forge were reflected in it. He blinked, and it was gone, leaving him wondering if he had seen it at all. 

Fëanáro led his guest to the table, where the stranger went to one knee and bowed his head in a practiced manner. Fëanáro touched him on the shoulder and gestured to him to stand. “My people,” Fëanáro said, “This is Annatar, an emissary of the Valar, sent to convey their contrition and support of the High King.”

Annatar bowed his head as the hall began to applaud. Tyelpe clapped as well, so hard that his hands were stinging after a moment. There was a twisting kind of warmth in his chest, and warmth pricking at his eyes. He had only been a child when Ancalima Osto had been constructed, but even then he had known they were exiles, that the kinslaying at Aqualondë would never be forgiven—and yet, finally, after all these long years, the Valar had sent their emissary. He ducked his head as Fëanáro gestured for Annatar to take Mai—the empty seat. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Annatar visits the forge and Tyelpe continues to be Real Gay.

Tyelpe did not expect to see much of their visitor. Someone as important as he was presumably would have better things to do than to spend his time in the forges or smithies. So he was in no way prepared—his face smeared with ash and sweat, muttering obscenities under his breath, as he tried to tweak out a set of ringed mail whose rings had been smashed into the leather beneath them and twisted nearly apart in multiple small places. Wolves, probably—the forces of Angband seemed to have access to infinite wolves with jaws were absurdly strong. Or perhaps it was just one wolf. Tyelpe had heard stories, brought back by quaking soldiers, of a vast black wolf with eyes like flame, who fought at the right hand of the Dark Lord. While he knew that one’s mind sometimes played tricks, particularly in the heat of battle, he was in absolutely no hurry to meet it himself, although he would certainly like to scold it for what it had done to this armor.

Just as he was grunting with the effort of freeing a particularly deeply embedded ring, he heard the creak of the door opening and looked up, expecting Lómion or one of the smiths, and his breath caught in his throat. Only feet away, Annatar was even lovelier than Tyelpe had anticipated, moving with cat-like grace on his soft white slippers.

“My lord!” Tyelpe exclaimed, once he had gotten over the shock. “Are you lost?”

“This is the forge, isn’t it?” Annatar seemed not at all perturbed by Tyelpe’s current state. 

“Well, yes, it is,” Tyelpe acknowledged. “Um, but what…I’m afraid it’s a mess right now.”

“That is certainly true,” Annatar agreed. “Would you like a second pair of hands to help you tidy it?”

“I—uh—” There were too many things going through Tyelpe’s head right now. There was, _this is where I keep all my things and if it gets tidied, I won’t be able to find any of them_. There was also, _you’re an emissary of the Vala, why are you slumming it in my forge?_ Not to mention, _I really have to get this done no matter how much I hate it._ He finally settled on, “No, thank you, my lord, but is there anything I can do for you?”

Annatar’s silver eyes swept across him again, and Tyelpe blanched slightly. He didn’t know how to read the queer hunger in that surprisingly sharp gaze. Then Annatar said, a little haltingly, “It is only that I do not like to sit idle, and I am a smith myself at times.”

Guilt smote Tyelpe as the picture in front of him rearranged. He had been thinking of Annatar only as an important emissary of the Valar, had assumed that he was either being polite or perhaps trying to snoop. But the awkward tilt of Annatar’s shoulders and the way he cast his gaze slightly downward made him think that the offer had actually been sincere. He was, after all, very far from his home and in a very strange place. There was no reason that Maiar couldn’t get homesick, was there? 

“I hadn’t realized,” Tyelpe said. “If you don’t mind doing something terribly boring, perhaps you could come help me mend this armor?”

“I don’t mind. Thank you.”

Tyelpe found himself helplessly and desperately aware of the other man’s presence as Annatar joined him quietly at the forge. He was so beautiful that Tyelpe nearly dropped his hammer three times after they started to work. The third time, he caught Annatar looking at him with the corner of his mouth turned slightly up. Tyelpe blushed and looked away.

Despite the distraction of his partner’s loveliness, Annatar was quick and skilled with his hands—possibly more skilled than Tyelpe himself. They did get in each other’s way a little—neither of them, Tyelpe suspected, was accustomed to working with another in the forge—but the armor was mended in a little over half the time than Tyelpe had originally estimated it would take.

With hands shaking a little with excitement, he ducked to pull out the notebook he used to sketch his ideas and schematics. Annatar peered over his shoulder, causing him to jump.

“My apologies,” the other man told him. “Is this the less boring part of your day?”

“It is,” Tyelpe responded, feeling the back of his neck heat up at Annatar’s intense regard. “Thanks to you, I have quite a bit more free time than I might otherwise have had.” He paused. He didn’t quite want to work with someone else on something this personal, but he could probably still offer a reasonable thanks. “If you’d like to work on something yourself, I have some materials you could use. Not as many as I expect you’d find in Aulë’s realm, but still…”

“I would love to, thank you.” 

They worked in silence for another few hours; then Annatar thanked Tyelpe quietly and told him he was needed elsewhere. He floated out as ethereally as he had floated in, leaving Tyelpe staring after him and trying very hard not to drool. He really shouldn’t have let his eyes drift that low, but Annatar’s white robe was belted at the waist and made of a thin, almost clinging material, and—and he had to wrench his eyes away. The incipient erection was only diverted in the nick of time when he realized Annatar had carefully tidied up and put away every single one of his tools in the drawers labeled for them. “My _filing system_!” Tyelpe wailed. Grateful for the distraction, he hurried over to start pulling every single one of them out again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Annatar and Tyelpe learn some things about each other.

Tyelpe was feeding the dogs when Annatar entered the forge next. There were quite a lot of stray dogs around the fortress, some of them uglier than others. Some whose masters had been lost in the war, others who had been born in out of the way corners and not been wanted. And Tyelpe suspected, sometimes, that a few of them got in by other means, but they were animals, and they needed food, so he wasn’t about to look too hard. 

Huan, who was exceptionally well fed both by Tyelko and Lómion, still had a tendency to try to steal scraps and was lurking at the edge of the crowd of excited animals, with Lómion laughing and shooing him backward.

“What is all this?” Annatar said from the edge of the excited barking, tail-wagging crowd.

“Oh—ah—my lord emissary, don’t, you’ll get your robes—”

But the lord emissary of the Valar was laughing and kneeling on the ground, heedless of the dirt on his carefully-embroidered white outfit, so that he could scritch ears and make friends with a dozen excitable mutts. Tyelpe felt the exact moment his entire being turned into a puddle. His previous interaction with Annatar had left him feeling awed, spooked, and a little aroused—filing system debacle notwithstanding—but he had been pressingly aware at the time and since of the glass wall that seemed to surround the Maia. Distant, regal, ethereal—untouchable even by one of Fëanáro’s kin.

The glass wall shattered as Annatar laughed happily, bowled over backwards by one of the larger dogs of decidedly…miscellaneous pedigree. “You evil thing,” he crooned. “I will be _all over_ muck and dirt now.”

Tyelpe didn’t say he’d warned him, because he had absolutely no words to speak. This was so _different_ from what he’d expected. This was—a jab in the ribs caused him to look down, to find that Lómion was smirking up at him. “Your mouth is open,” the boy said archly.

Slamming it shut, Tyelpe rubbed the back of his neck in slow embarrassment, then bent to extricate a particularly small and excitable puppy from underneath the clumsy paws of one of the bigger animals. “Shhh, there, you’re all right, tiny one.” He lifted it up and inspected it. It looked young, barely weaned, but it had pitch-black fur and claws and teeth too big for its paws and mouth. It yelped and growled, and when Tyelpe peered into its eyes, he saw that they were crimson. Not a dog, then.

“What’s that?” Annatar said casually. Most unfairly, despite his remonstration to the dog, his white robes were unblemished, and not one silvery hair seemed to be out of place.

“A barghest, I think,” Tyelpe said. It made a yipping noise and tried to take a bite out of his finger. He laughed. “A _teething_ barghest.”

“What will you do with it?” Annatar’s voice was remote and neutral, the voice of the distant emissary, all warmth drained. Tyelpe felt suddenly chilled.

“Well, feed it like the rest, I suppose,” he said. “Perhaps I’ll make it a bone of leather so it doesn’t go after all the shoes on the first floor.”

“Are they not evil?” That same chilly remoteness.

Tyelpe frowned at him. He’d heard that same nonsense far too often and by many Elves who should know better. “They’re just animals,” he said shortly. “They aren’t omens of death and they aren’t servants of the Dark Lord. Any hound obeys its master. That’s all.”

There was nary a flicker in those silver eyes. “Forgive me,” Annatar said smoothly, bowing his head. “I believe I spoke without understanding. I’m certain you have the right of it.”

“Well—good.” Tension stretched between them for an instant, and Tyelpe’s breath caught in his throat. Then pain lanced through his hand as the barghest pup twisted and bit down on his hand, and he yelped and laughed and sent it off to play with the rest of them. When he looked up again, Annatar had already slipped into the forge and was preparing to work.

~

Annatar was an exceptional smith. If Tyelpe had been even an iota more of a jealous person, he would have spent all his time watching those hands in the hopes that some of their precise motions might rub off on him. As it was, he spent quite a lot of his time watching Annatar’s hands for—other reasons. It didn’t take him long to realize that Annatar, like anyone else, had his quirks, though. He had a bad habit of misjudging distances when he was reaching for tools with his right hand, which had already caused several near-disasters in the forge, although he was also exceptionally good at compensating for them. Often, Tyelpe caught him rubbing his right wrist with the left, an unconscious motion, and a strange one for such a delicate, innocent-looking Maia. It was the sort of motion Tyelpe would have expected from someone who had been confined, on whose wrists still lay the marks of chafing manacles. But surely Annatar had arrived directly from Valinor? He could not understand it, and the mystery drew him in almost as surely as Annatar’s beauty and grace did.

On the third week, when Tyelpe had let himself into the forge after sleeping particularly late—the night before he had been up till all hours directing his apprentices and working himself to reforge armor and swords after yet another difficult battle—to find that Annatar was already there, having apparently let himself in.

“You must have better things to do,” Tyelpe said, only realizing after the words left his mouth how accusatory they sounded.

Amused silver eyes glanced over at him. “Must I?” Annatar said, in a tone of voice halfway between apologetic and mocking.

“Even if you are a smith of Aulë, a herald of Valinor should be—” Tyelpe halted, because he wasn’t actually certain what a herald of Valinor ought to be doing.

“This is where I will be of the greatest help,” Annatar said. “I am a smith, with a great deal of experience in such matters.” He yawned and stretched, and Tyelpe found his eyes helplessly tracing the lines of that graceful form again. “I can hardly spend all day at King Fëanáro’s side advising him. And in any case, I do not think he is overfond of receiving unsolicited advice.”

Well. Tyelpe could hardly disagree with _that_. Indeed, anyone who had taken an advisory role too freely might have found himself thrown out of the fortress, even one sent by the penitent Valar. He tried not to listen to the small part of his mind that whispered, _thrown off the top, you mean_.

“Don’t worry,” Annatar told him, eyes crinkling with merriment. “He can summon me if he has need. Until then, I shall spend my time as I see fit.”

“You’ve cleaned up all my tools again,” Tyelpe said helplessly.

“Think of your apprentices, Tyelpe, think of the habits you’re teaching them.”

“I think you just like annoying me.”

Annatar’s lips quirked, and a glint of red appeared in his eyes. “Maybe.”

There was something strange about the air between them. Tyelpe might almost have thought it was crackling with electricity, and he couldn’t seem to draw breath properly. Part of him wanted to scold Annatar from being presumptuous, and part of him wanted to go and yank all his tools out again, and part of him—wanted to do other things. Annatar’s eyes narrowed a little, but before Tyelpe could do anything else, he heard a soft knock and Lómion’s voice called, “Can I come in?”

The tension vanished as if it had never been there; Annatar turned back to his workstation. Whatever strange red gleam had seemed to momentarily possess him was gone, and he was purely a faded figure of white and silver again. “Yes, do come in,” Tyelpe said, a little helplessly. Lómion entered, frowned slightly, and glanced back and forth between the two of them. 

“May I do a little smithing work?” he asked.

“Of course.” Tyelpe smiled at him. “Let’s see how your soldering technique has improved.”


	5. Chapter 5

Another dog had started showing up at the feeding times occasionally. Tyelpe was certain that this one must have slipped in from outside, because it was full grown, and he’d never seen it before. It was thin and a little bedraggled, looking as if it had gone perhaps a few nights without food. Its white fur shone in the silvery light, though it was ragged in places where old scars showed through. Unlike most of the other dogs, it sat patiently at the side, waiting its turn. When the body of the pack had finished tearing through their food, it padded over and nosed at the leftovers, pausing to sniff encouragingly at the little barghest, which howled angrily and nipped at its muzzle.

Calmly, the white dog swatted it aside, then raised its hackles playfully and, instead of ignoring it as most of the other dogs seemed to, tussled with it for a few minutes before wandering back over to Tyelpe, sitting down, and whining sadly.

“You could have eaten with the rest of them,” Tyelpe told it sternly. It looked at him with large, liquid brown eyes, still whining sadly. “Oh, Eru, fine. Follow me.” The dog followed him as he went back into the forge. “I don’t have a proper meal for you, you know,” he told it crossly. “But here’s a few treats I keep stashed around.”

The dog yelped happily and danced for an instant, then sat quietly again and took the treats from Tyelpe’s hand. He didn’t normally spend much time with a single animal, but this one was so polite—maybe it hadn’t slipped in, maybe it was one whose master had died? Perhaps—Tyelpe didn’t want to keep thinking of the creature as ‘it’, so he lifted its tail to check and got the single most outraged look he had ever seen a dog make. He hadn’t thought a dog _could_ make a face like that. 

“Sorry, boy,” Tyelpe laughed, then ruffled its fur, trying to soothe him. He found more scars, thin white lines crisscrossing the dog’s back. Nothing recent. When he went to inspect the dog’s paws, he got a warning growl—the first aggressive noise he’d heard it make. Well, plenty of dogs didn’t like their paws examined. “Sorry,” Tyelpe said again, and the dog licked his face as if forgiving him.

~

If Fëanáro had hoped a blessing from Valinor would lessen the frequency of constant battles or improve their luck, he seemed to have been disappointed. Tyelpe didn’t bother with disappointment. When Fëanáro continued sending his forces out one after the other even after the razing of Angband, he had swallowed his own despair and resigned himself to supporting his king. It would end when it ended.

From what he had gathered from the returning warriors, the forces of darkness were proving rather elusive. Rather than choosing to fight, they retreated at every opportunity, leading Fëanáro’s warriors into trap after trap. Most recently, they had found themselves mired in a dark bog as the army they had thought they were chasing melted into white mist. No casualties, but it still meant extra work for the smiths, since all that armor had to be cleaned and polished, any rust removed, a number of twisted and bent pieces worked back into shape. Annatar and Tyelpe ended up working overnight in the forge with Lómion helping them. As the clock’s hours spun into a new day—the ubiquitous silver light of the Silmarils never shifting, never changing—Tyelpe groaned and staggered to his feet. They were done.

He yawned again and looked around, trying to clear a blurry head, wondering where Annatar and Lómion were. Then he found them. Lómion must have fallen asleep some hours ago; he was lying on the rug near the front of the room, and Annatar—or perhaps Tyelpe himself when he wasn’t paying attention—had dropped Tyelpe’s emergency blanket over his back. He was sleeping deeply and contentedly.

Annatar was sleeping as well. Tyelpe suspected he had been skipping sleep for several nights before this, because surely a Maia should have better endurance than he did himself. Whatever the cause, Annatar was clearly deeply asleep, curled up on his side by the forge with a hammer still clutched in one hand. As Tyelpe watched, one of Annatar’s legs twitched, and he whimpered softly, a noise that turned into a series of soft little breathy squeaks. A laugh bubbled out of Tyelpe’s throat, because he looked like nothing so much as Huan in the middle of one of his doggy dreams. Eru. The _infuriating_ Maia, hardworking, talented, beautiful, and apparently with nothing better to do than spend his time in a grubby forge with Fëanáro’s half-forgotten grandson. His heart twisting inside him, Tyelpe went over and knelt beside Annatar, yielding to temptation just slightly—just enough to tuck a stray golden curl behind one ear. The firelight glowed along it and the warmth seemed caught in it so that when he touched it, it was like putting a hand on a fire-warmed forge.

Tyelpe’s breath caught in his throat for an instant. He wanted more—wanted to sink his hands into that fuzzy golden mane and feel that warmth. He wanted—he pulled back, his heart pounding in his chest. He needed sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The seasons progress. Tyelpe makes a friend.

The days were getting colder as winter advanced. It was always winter up here in the mountains, Tyelpe had found, but sometimes the winter was more wintry than it was at other times. At times like this, he wanted to spend all his time in the forge, warming himself at the fire, and not in his rather small and very drafty bedroom. Lómion sometimes slept in the bed with him, particularly when the nightmares were bad and his mother very distant, but he had been spending more time with Tyelko and Huan lately, and Tyelpe didn’t begrudge him that. He did not, however, like how cold his hands and feet were getting.

A low whine outside his door roused him from his doze, and Tyelpe blinked a few times and then yawned and turned over. The whine came again, more insistent this time, and then a scratching noise. “What is it?” Tyelpe mumbled, throwing off the ineffectual blankets, getting up, and staggering over to the door to wrench it open.

Outside the door sat the white dog, licking at a paw and giving him a sorrowful look. “What in Eru’s name are you doing here?” Tyelpe asked him. The dog got to his feet and leaned against Tyelpe, which was when he felt the soft shivers running through the animal’s thin frame. “Oh, you’re cold, too. How did you know I lived here, though? Track me by scent, did you, boy?” He rubbed the animal’s silky ears, then sighed. His bed would smell horribly of dog if he let the animal in, but on the other hand a furry hot water bottle sounded very appealing right now. “Okay, boy,” he said after a moment. “Come on in.”

The dog happily pranced after him as he went back into his bedroom and shut the door behind them. Not even waiting to be invited, the animal padded right over to the bed, leapt gracefully up, and curled up in the mess of blankets, right in the center.

“Shove over,” Tyelpe told him crossly, getting in and nudging until he had carved out a space for himself as well. A cold nose poked at the back of his neck, and he yelped. “No!” The dog needed a name, Tyelpe thought distractedly. He couldn’t keep saying “hey you, dog.” He turned over, to see that the dog was panting at him, looking extraordinarily proud. “Oh, you like being a jerk, do you?” Tyelpe tweaked the dog’s nose. “Valatanin [1]. That’s what I’m calling you. How do you like that?” The ears flicked back, but the newly-christened Valatanin did not object. He licked Tyelpe’s face instead, then huffed softly and lay down at his side.

“Eru, you are warm,” Tyelpe mumbled, throwing an arm over the dog. Why had he never gotten a dog before? Fluffy and warm and wonderful. So much better than a cold, lonely bed by himself. “Good dog.”

~

“The system of mirrors,” Annatar said, in a questioning voice. “Who built them? Did Fëanáro do it all himself?” The two of them were taking a break from the forge work, crouching by the fire and chatting.

“Not all himself,” Tyelpe answered. “He designed them, and many of the smiths helped create them, but he was the one who installed them across the fortress. He—doesn’t like others coming too close to the Silmarils.” The Silmarils. He didn’t like thinking about them too hard, because somehow his thoughts kept spinning back to them if he did, like a moth to a flame.

Annatar nodded seriously. “He must keep them near the top of the tower, I suppose, for their light to be spread across the whole of it.”

“I’m not sure about that.” Tyelpe chewed on his lip meditatively. “The mirror system…I think it would work just as well no matter where they were. It would have to be installed differently, of course.” He shrugged. The Silmarils…gleaming and white. If his grandfather would let him, he could forge such a setting for them—a crown, perhaps, or—no, a crown would be too much. A necklace, to enhance their beauty but not to made it gaudy. He blinked and shook his head and looked over at Annatar, who was watching him intently. “I don’t like talking about the Silmarils,” he said slowly, trying to remember why.

“I am sorry,” Annatar said, with a smile. “I won’t bring the subject up again.”

Nearby, Lómion stirred from where he had been taking a nap by the fire. “You are both being far too loud,” he grumbled.

“Sorry,” Tyelpe told him. “Go back to sleep.” He glanced back over at Annatar, whose eyes had dropped a little. Was he looking at Tyelpe’s lips? Tyelpe swallowed, flushed slowly, and looked away. No, he was making things up. Surely.

[1] “Proudnose”. Thanks to Lyra from the SWG server for the translation


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Annatar is *cold*.
> 
> Really.
> 
> No ulterior motive at all.

It was snowing again. There were no windows, but Tyelpe could tell by the howling of the wind and the way snowflakes unerringly found every little imperfection and piled up in corners of the drafty corridors of Ancalima Osto. He could also tell by the way Aunt Irissë pressed a hand against the wall and stared outward with such a fierce longing that Tyelpe had to look away from her.

“My mother isn’t doing well,” Lómion had said that morning. “Could you spend some time with us?”

Tyelpe had agreed readily enough; he wanted Lómion to be able to confide in him, and he knew the boy’s life hadn’t been easy. He didn’t quite regret it now, although he wasn’t entirely happy about it either. Lómion was cuddled up to Huan, talking in a low voice to Tyelko about breeding dogs. Tyelpe had made everyone mugs of hot drink and handed them out, then tried to engage his aunt in conversation and received nothing but a vague glance. No wonder Lómion wanted someone else to be here.

From what Tyelpe knew, she hadn’t spoken much since a few years after Lómion’s birth. When she had first appeared, pregnant and exhausted, begging for shelter and aid, Fëanáro had welcomed her, and she seemed to have been happy enough. But after the boy had been born, she had asked to leave. She had not been permitted to. For several years, she had begged and pleaded, then actually tried to escape. The guards had heard the baby crying and taken her back in. Although she had never been ill-treated here, something seemed to have gone wrong in her when she wasn’t able to leave.

Tyelpe sipped his drink, trying not to give into his own exhaustion. Even the days seemed to stretch so long in Ancalima Osto, monotonous and unending, beneath the unchanging silver light of the Silmarils. Once they had defeated the Dark Lord’s forces, would Fëanáro open the doors? He had to, Tyelpe thought, for the first time feeling a chilling twist inside his stomach. What if he did not?

There was a soft knock on the door. Tyelpe glanced around, but it didn’t seem as if anyone else was going to answer it. Irissë hadn’t even stirred, and he wasn’t sure if Lómion or Tyelko had even heard it. Rubbing his hands together, Tyelpe set down his mug and went over, opening the door to find a very pale and wan-looking Annatar standing on the other side.

“Annatar?”

The Maia blew on his hands. “The forge was empty,” he explained. His teeth were chattering, but when Tyelpe put out a hand to touch him, he felt the warmth radiating off him in waves.

“Are you feverish?” he asked in concern.

Annatar shook his head. “Just cold. I’m a fire Maia, you see,” he finished weakly. “Aulë’s, remember.”

“Well, don’t just stand out there freezing. Come in. I’m sure Aunt Irissë won’t mind.” He glanced back, but she hadn’t moved from the wall at all. “Everyone is warm but me,” he confessed. “Tyelko and Lómion are cuddling Huan.”

Annatar laughed but suffered himself to be led inside, then paused. “It’s cold in here, too,” he complained. “Come here.”

“What?”

“You’re cold as well, but you’re an Elf. We can fix this.” He led Tyelpe back to the comfortable armchair he’d been shivering in before, pushed him down into, and hopped up into his lap.

Tyelpe gave vent to a shocked little gasp. Annatar was a _furnace_ , which was wonderful, but he was also soft. Very, very soft. And very close. Before Tyelpe could decide how he was going to react—or how he was going to prevent himself from reacting—Annatar had slipped his hands up inside Tyelpe’s shirt and cuddled up to his neck. “Put your arms around me,” he murmured. “I need to warm up.”

“You are extremely warm already,” gasped Tyelpe. _Don’t get aroused, don’t get aroused, your aunt is in the room—_

“Fire Maia, I don’t feel cold when I’m cold. Put your arms around me. Please?”

It was that _please_ , complete with a pitiful look that seemed so out of place on Annatar’s usually distant countenance, that did it. Tyelpe put his arms around the Maia and pulled him close. Annatar gave a soft little shiver and then relaxed against him. He was utterly pliant like that, and Tyelpe couldn’t help imagining what could have happened if they had been alone. If Annatar wanted him to—

It was all too easy to imagine pulling Annatar into a very slightly different position, grinding against him, kissing his neck. Tyelpe slipping his hands up Annatar’s robes as well in retaliation. Oh, _Eru_. He was hard. Annatar shifted slightly, and Tyelpe bit down on his lower lip to keep from making a noise.

“Enjoying yourself?” Annatar murmured in his ear, and Tyelpe’s eyes flew open in shock.

“Are you doing this on _purpose_?” he managed.

The Maia’s smile shaded into a smirk, and he leaned his head up. Teeth nibbled at Tyelpe’s ear, and Tyelpe barely restrained a whimper. “I will drop you onto the _floor_!” he hissed.

“And make a scene?”

“You are _cruel_ ,” mumbled Tyelpe.

“Am I?” He shifted again, and Tyelpe barely restrained a moan. “There have been plenty of evenings you could have made a move in the forge when we were alone,” Annatar told him relentlessly. “I’m afraid you’ll just have to put up with the discomfort for now.”

“I didn’t think you wanted that!” Tyelpe responded agitatedly. “I—I mean, you’re a _Maia_ , you’re an emissary of Valinor, and I’m—”

“An incredibly talented smith and the grandson of the High King?” Tyelpe felt a slim hand worm its way into his shirt sleeve and squeeze. “Not to mention delightfully handsome. And rather adorable.”

Tyelpe definitely wasn’t cold anymore. In fact, his ears were so hot he thought they were about to burst into flame. “Later today, you could come by my room,” he managed.

Annatar purred in satisfaction. “Make it an order, and I assure you I will be there.”

Shifting desperately to hide the twitch his cock made at the suggestion, Tyelpe whispered, “As the grandson of the High King, I _order_ you to visit my room later.”

“As my lord wishes,” Annatar murmured.

“What are you two doing over there anyway?” Tyelko’s voice asked, and Tyelpe jumped nervously.

“Just trying to warm up,” Annatar replied innocently, even as he shifted his ass right up against Tyelpe’s now-aching erection. Tyelpe bit down angrily on his shoulder and was rewarded by a sharp moan. Unfortunately for him, this meant that now Lómion and Tyelko were _both_ looking over. Annatar gave him a winning smile as if to say, _Your move_. 

“I am going to do _horrible things_ to you later,” Tyelpe growled, then said aloud, “Sorry, Annatar, I didn’t mean to jab you with my elbow.”

Lómion flopped back onto Huan. Tyelko, looking not even remotely convinced, grinned widely at them.

“Careful, I can only get so hard,” Annatar whispered in his ear. Tyelpe pressed his burning face into the crook of the Maia’s neck to suppress a whimper. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Annatar talks Tyelpe through domming him.
> 
> or: the shameless smut chapter.

Was he going to come?Tyelpe had been so busy trying not to rut against Annatar’s backside in front of his family that he hadn’t had time to worry about whether the Maia had just been playing some kind of game.He didn’t think so—that didn’t seem like Annatar—but alone in his cold room, with Valatanin off doing who-knew-what, little worms of icy doubt kept creeping in.

“Telperinquar,” he told himself sternly.“Pull yourself together.”Either Annatar would come, or he wouldn’t.He didn’t know all of Annatar’s duties, but he had left Irissë’s chambers quite abruptly after a summons from Fëanáro, and who knew how long Grandfather would keep him?Tyelpe paced the length of his room, then paced again, then took a deep breath and told himself to go to the damn forge already.Just as he was making up his mind to do that, there was a soft knock on the door.

When he opened it, he found that it was, indeed, Annatar, but an Annatar he hadn’t seen before, wearing a loose white robe with some kind of gauzy material falling from his elbows.It was a lovely piece of craftsmanship, with little pearls embroidered to form tiny flowers curling and blossoming, but Tyelpe was mostly occupied with the fact that it was belted so loosely that he could see the pale strip of skin from Annatar’s collarbone to his waist, because it looked as though it might at any moment come quite undone.Annatar’s golden curls were loose and flowing about his shoulders, and he had a single, star-like flower tucked behind one ear.The effect was gentler and more companionable than his usual outfit, and it took Tyelpe’s breath away entire.

Annatar, for his part, looked entirely innocent, as if he had no idea how much his appearance had affected Tyelpe.“Are you going to ask me inside?” he asked.Then, letting his voice drop a little, “ _Order_ me inside, grandson of Fëanáro?”

Before Tyelpe really knew what he was doing, he had reached out, taken the collar of the robe and yanked.Annatar followed easily enough, laughing, the innocence of his expression vanishing beneath an overabundance of glee.Tyelpe pulled him the whole way in, shut the door, and then pressed the Maia up against the wall to kiss him hard.

Annatar kissed him back, fierce and eager.He was alight, Tyelpe thought, his hands roaming over Annatar’s fiery back, feeling across his sharp shoulderblades, cupping his soft thighs through the thin robe.A flame spirit—it did make sense.One of Aulë’s, after all.And yet, he seemed so pale, almost wraith-like, that until he had declared it to be so, Tyelpe would never have thought it of him.One of Varda’s, more likely.And yet perhaps it explained the glimmering shades of red he had seen on and off in the forge, in Annatar’s eyes, in Annatar’s hair.He plunged his hands into the welcoming heat of Annatar’s hair, and Annatar pushed his hands up onto Tyelpe’s face, cupping it, holding him, as he moaned into his mouth and sucked on his lower lip.

He laid a trail of little burning kisses down the line of Tyelpe’s jaw, and Tyelpe was moaning too, thrusting against Annatar’s thighs and the silkiness of his robe.“Take me,” Annatar whispered in his ear.“ _Please_ , Tyelpe.”

His cock twitched at the urgent need laid bare in Annatar’s voice, but Tyelpe was not quite ready to let the Maia have his way, after his behavior in the other room with Tyelpe’s family just feet away.“What if I don’t wish to?” he murmured in Annatar’s ear, working with his tongue at one of the small silver studs that pierced the lobe.“What if I would rather order you to kneel and take me in your mouth?”

Annatar keened and writhed against him, twisting this way and that but not so violently as to dislodge Tyelpe’s mouth from his ear.“I would—ah, _ah_ , Tyelpe!—I would obey you!” he gasped.Then, with a flicker of that red flame in his eyes, “but I would not be polite about it.”

“Then do it,” Tyelpe told him, barely recognizing his own voice beneath the sudden growl of desire that shot through it—that shot through _him_.He twisted one of his hands in Annatar’s hair, tugging at it to manipulate him away from the wall and down onto his knees.The Maia went down easily, his usually silver eyes almost entirely filled with red-gold flames, his white robe falling from his shoulders to bare his narrow, perfect chest. 

“As you command.”His slim fingers tugged at Tyelpe’s rather ragged winter trousers, and Tyelpe had to use the wall for support as that same dextrous, too-hot hand freed his cock from the confining cloth, inspecting it with interest.

“Long and lovely,” Annatar pronounced with a smirk after a moment, “much like its master,” and then he licked a thin stripe along it from the root to the tip.Tyelpe swore loudly in a few broken words of Sindarin, his head falling back to knock against the wall, his hand jerking in Annatar’s hair.

“How kind of you to say so,” he managed.“Now, will you please—”

A single, hesitant motion of Annatar’s hand on his length drew a deep groan out of his throat, and then the Maia stopped again.“Requests I can deny,” he said, and when Tyelpe looked helplessly down at him, it seemed a conflagration burned in those bright eyes, and the shades of his golden hair had taken on a faint firelit hue.“And I did say I would not be polite.”

“Thou art the single most wretchedly _awful_ —” Tyelpe wanted to take him and hold him and use that pretty mouth until Annatar was choking, until there were tears starting in those fiery eyes.Fiercely, he held himself in check, because what kind of man would he be if he—Annatar’s smile widened, and Tyelpe was half surprised to find that his immaculate teeth weren’t _pointed_.

“Darling, sweet Tyelpe,” he crooned.“I won’t do anything unless you make me.”Then he sat back on his heels, leaving Tyelpe gasping and desperately, achingly hard.“Or order me, if you prefer,” he added in some amusement.“It counts the same.”

Tyelpe felt his face darkening with frustration, need, and embarrassment, in no particular order.He bit his lip, but Annatar had made it quite plain where he stood—or knelt, as it were, and it was nothing about whether Tyelpe was the _kind of man_ but only did he _want_ this—did he _want_ Annatar, like _this_?

He did.He reached forward and took Annatar’s hair again, twisting it around his fist.“Thou really art rude,” he told Annatar.Then he pulled the Maia forward.“Open thy teasing mouth.”

Entirely obedient, Annatar did, gazing up at him with a face that was suddenly full of innocence.

“Good,” Tyelpe told him and hilted himself inside the other’s mouth with a single thrust.He had expected, after that, for Annatar to be able to take it, and he was, though his eyes rolled back in his head and he moaned desperately around Tyelpe’s length.Sindarin obscenities were spilling from his own mouth again, Tyelpe noticed distractedly—when had he even _learned_ those words?He thrust, trying not to go too desperately, though more for his own sake than Annatar’s.The Maia was clearly loving every minute of it, his cheeks flaring with color, his eyes tearing up but blown dark with lust.His mouth was heaven—hot and slick and perfect, and he moved his tongue to tease up the underside of Tyelpe’s cock.He was also, Tyelpe noticed vaguely, starting to rut against his own bent heel.

“Who said you could do that?” Tyelpe demanded, pulling Annatar off again, though not without a muttered whine at the loss of that delicious heat.

“You didn’t say I could _not_ ,” Annatar retorted immediately.

“Well, don’t,” Tyelpe told him, aware he probably sounded more scolding than commanding, but Annatar merely favored him with those red-gold burning eyes and inclined his head, “As you wish.”

He wanted more than Annatar’s mouth, Tyelpe confessed to himself, and he still had yet to push that robe fully from the other’s shoulders, to explore Annatar more thoroughly and carefully than he had had the opportunity for so far.“Get on the bed,” he said recklessly, and this time, he thought he might have surprised Annatar, but the Maia did not hesitate, curling up from his toes to the balls of his feet and setting himself down delicately onto Tyelpe’s messy little cot.

“Don’t move,” Tyelpe told him, once he had stilled.“ _I_ will move you.”Bright flame flashed _red_ in Annatar’s eyes, but he bowed his head submissively and did not make another motion as Tyelpe approached him.Tyelpe pulled the robe down off his shoulders and began to kiss him, exploring the slim body.He wondered if the Maia had given himself form; it was certainly perfect enough to be true.Not a scar, not a blemish marred his chest and abdomen, both of them smooth and well-shapen.Tyelpe teased at one pink nipple with his tongue, and Annatar gasped but still did not move, a sound that went directly to Tyelpe’s groin and lodged there.

Still, he denied himself, spending a few more minutes lathing his tongue over those straining pebbled peaks, listening to Annatar’s gasps turn to moans and then to broken, murmured pleas—and still he did not move.It was intoxicating, to take him apart like this, to watch the pale silver remoteness of his beauty burst into brilliant flames beneath Tyelpe’s touch.

He undid the robe and let it fall, kissing his way carefully across Annatar’s creamy inner thighs.“Please—” Annatar begged, “Tyelpe, _please_ ,” but he only looked at Annatar’s member—flushed and dark with blood, a little slimmer and shorter than his own, but lovely in its own way—and did not touch it.Annatar made a soft sobbing noise.

“You are so beautiful,” Tyelpe whispered.“You are _perfect_.”Annatar looked down at him through bleary darkened eyes.

“Can I see you, too?” he asked, his voice husky with need.

Tyelpe looked down at his threadbare clothing, threadbare even for a normal Elf, much less the grandson of Fëanáro, High King, as Annatar kept reminding him.“I am not as beautiful as you,” he said doubtfully.Perhaps he might have been, once, but he was not a Maia and Elf or no, Middle Earth had already taken its toll on him.

Annatar quivered as if he had a movement in mind but remembered in time that he was not permitted to move. He spoke scornfully instead, “You are not a Maia, but that does not mean I do not wish to see you.Besides—” he half-halted, as if to recall some words he had not intended to say that had slipped out.

“Besides what?” Tyelpe asked teasingly, though he was reaching for the bottom of his own shirt.

“Besides, nothing can be truly beautiful without a breaking and remaking,” Annatar said quietly, after a moment.“Think of it even in the forge.The metal in its first form is broken and remade.”

“I would not call it _breaking_ ,” Tyelpe responded, in a little puzzlement.He drew off his shirt and let his open trousers slip to the ground.“Reshaping, perhaps.”

He stood in front of Annatar, trying not to feel shy or overwhelmed by the regard in those bright eyes.He knew he had thin scars, some worse than others, from the forge and from battle.His hair was black and raggedly cut to waist length.His nose had been broken once and although everyone assured him it was cleanly healed, he could not shake the certainty that there was an _air_ of brokenness about it that would haunt him for eternity.

“Well,” he said, forcing himself to look up and at Annatar.“What do you think?”

Annatar remained quite still, but his smile widened, and there was a surprised awe in his eyes.“Beautiful,” he replied, sounding as sincere as anyone Tyelpe had ever heard.Then, biting his lip, “If I have flattered you well enough, will you _please_ come over here and touch me again?”

But it did not sound like flattery.It sounded like truth.Indeed, it seemed like more truth than Annatar had intended; it did not escape Tyelpe how insistent he had been that he wanted to see Tyelpe and then how ready he was to be done—and yet, it did not seem to be because he did not like what he saw, but rather—just possibly—because he liked it too well.

As Tyelpe returned to the bed, feeling encouraged, he saw that he had not yet managed to quite see all of Annatar’s form.About his right wrist was a simple silver bracelet, intricate and covered in beautiful geometric designs, but locked as tightly as a shackle.Curious, Tyelpe reached towards it, to brush his fingers across the metal, but now Annatar did move, swift as a striking snake, his left hand covering the bracelet protectively.“I cannot,” he breathed.“I am sorry, Tyelpe, but—I—I cannot.”He was trembling, Tyelpe realized, terrified.“Please do not ask this of me.”

“Shhh.”Tyelpe pulled his hand back as if from a burning coal.“Shhhh, I will not touch it, I am sorry.”He stroked Annatar’s hair back from his forehead, touching him gently.He had expected the faint glimmer of firelight to disappear with the arousal that he presumed he had shattered, possibly irreparably, but it grew, if anything, a little stronger for an instant before once again muting itself.He heard Annatar take in a strong and sudden breath, then speak again, the hesitance and fear wiped out so completely Tyelpe could almost believe he had imagined the whole thing.

“I’m afraid I have moved,” Annatar said apologetically.

“You have,” Tyelpe agreed. 

Those fiery eyes gleamed at him.“Perhaps I ought to be punished,” Annatar said wickedly.

Tyelpe opened his mouth to say it did not seem reasonable to punish someone for getting upset, then closed it again.“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he asked, biting at Annatar’s neck.Annatar whined softly.

“Yes,” he gasped.“I would like it very much.”

“Ask me nicely,” Tyelpe said, realizing only after the words had left his mouth that they did, in fact, constitute an order.

“ _Please_ ,” Annatar begged immediately.“Please punish me, please, Tyelpe, please—”

“You beg so prettily.”Tyelpe looked at him in awe.“A proud Maia, so _reduced_ —”

Annatar’s breath hitched, and Tyelpe realized that the words had aroused him further.He wanted to keep that pleading, desperate look on Annatar’s face.He wanted—“Kneel on the bed,” he told Annatar.“Hold still, and don’t you dare climax.”

“Yes, Tyelpe,” Annatar whispered.He wriggled out of Tyelpe’s arms and went to kneel on his hands and knees.Tyelpe went up behind him, running his hands across those creamy sides and outer thighs and listening to the soft sigh Annatar gave as he did so.He would need oil, he thought suddenly, and he scooted over to the drawer by the side of his bed and pulled out a little bottle that he usually used on himself.

“Please,” Annatar begged, his fingers digging into the bed and rucking up the sheets around them.

“I’ll have to prepare you,” Tyelpe said awkwardly.

“You won’t,” Annatar responded immediately.

“Because you’re a Maia?”

A dry chuckle.“Because I don’t need it.”

Eru, but Tyelpe was hard.He couldn’t wait much longer; he _couldn’t_.With fumbling hands, he opened the oil anyway and coated his own erection, hissing slightly as he did so.Then he aligned himself with the back of Annatar’s head and, twisting his clean hand in Annatar’s silky hair, shoved him face down into the pillows, which drew a rough, excited noise from the Maia’s throat.He used his other hand to position himself and then push inside.Annatar made another noise, muffled by the pillow; Tyelpe could barely hear it through the blissful feel of him, hot and tight.

“You feel so good,” he breathed in Annatar’s ear.

Annatar turned his head sideways, giving him an impish smile.“I said I didn’t need preparation.You didn’t need to use the oil.”

“Who is in charge here?” Tyelpe demanded, and Annatar’s eyes widened and darkened.“Besides, it wouldn’t have been very comfortable for me, even if you are capable of healing such things easily.”

“It’s your choice, of course,” Annatar said, in a voice that was so obviously humoring him that Tyelpe thrust into him as hard as possible, drawing a harsh cry out of both their throats.

“ _Valar_ , just like that,” Annatar moaned, and Tyelpe gritted his teeth.It had been so long that he was afraid he would climax in about twenty seconds if he moved too fast, but he wanted to give Annatar what he wanted.And he wanted to take what _he_ wanted, and they seemed to be the same thing. 

So he tried.He twisted his hand in that warm, curly hair and bit his lip till he tasted copper and thrust and thrust and _thrust_ —Annatar moaned beneath him, not moving at first, until Tyelpe remembered and whispered, “Move, if you want to,” and the Maia writhed beneath him, howling into the pillow when Tyelpe dug his nails into that perfect white thigh.

“Annatar,” Tyelpe breathed, because if he had been beautiful before, he was perfection like this.Silver-gold hair spread across the pillow, twisted and tangled with sweat, curled and sprawling like briars across a field of snow.Sweat glistened on his back and shoulder blades, and the tension humming through his arms and fingers curled them up into strange, rigid postures.There was a red flush spreading across his back, and after a moment Tyelpe realized he was glowing faintly, that slight hint of firelight emanating not just from his hair now, but from his whole form.

Bending forward, Tyelpe bit down on the junction of Annatar’s shoulder and his neck, drawing a breathless whine out of him, and then he pulled up those lovely smooth hips and increased his pace, losing himself in the heat and slickness.“Anna—tar—I’m—I’m going to—”

“ _Tyelpe_ —”

Tyelpe drove into him once more before his climax took him, hot and hard, and he spilled inside the Maia.

He blinked himself back into some kind of vague awareness to find his nose in Annatar’s hair, which smelled of the forge and something else that he couldn’t quite put his finger on, something much more associated with the outdoors.Annatar was whimpering.“Please, Tyelpe,” he moaned.“Please let me come.”

Oh.Tyelpe had ordered him not to climax, but he hadn’t really believed Annatar would be able to stop himself, and he’d half-forgotten the words in the throes of passion anyway.

“Turn over,” he told Annatar quietly, rolling to the side to let him up.

Another little pained noise, but Annatar obeyed immediately, flopping onto his back.He looked wrecked.His erection was straining upwards, and his eyes were full of tears, his lips swollen and red, and his cheeks flushed.“You are so beautiful,” Tyelpe told him sincerely.

“Please,” Annatar breathed.He was trembling a little, but other than he did not move.“Please, Tyelpe, _please_.I need it.I need to come.”

Watching him beg was one of the headiest things Tyelpe had ever seen.His own cock actually twitched slightly, even though he had just spilled himself.He ran a hand lightly across Annatar’s chest and stomach, listening to him moan and beg for a moment longer.Then, taking pity on him, he slid his hand down to grasp Annatar’s shaft.“Go ahead, climax, dear one,” he murmured, and Annatar’s back arched off the bed and he cried out something incomprehensible as he spilled over Tyelpe’s fist.

“That was…you are…” Tyelpe cleared his throat, suddenly embarrassed, as Annatar lay back panting.“You are sublime.”

There was a momentary flicker in Annatar’s eyes as the red-gold of the flames slowly faded, but then he smiled slowly.“That was delightful, O grandson of the High King,” he said, with just the barest edge of sharpness in his smile. 

Tyelpe flushed.“Thank you,” he said.Then, impulsively, “It’s cold.Will you stay?”

Pause.Beat.“All right.”The smile became a full-blown grin.“Nothing better than a fire Maia in your bed on a cold winter night, or so I’ve been told.”

Tyelpe peeled back his covers invitingly, slipping under them himself, and Annatar joined him, immediately curling up against him, immediately warming him up.His golden head rested against Tyelpe’s shoulder, and Tyelpe felt his heart swelling with an affection so much stronger than he had expected that he had to turn his head to the side to hide his tears. 

Oh.He was falling in love.


	9. Chapter 9

Curufinwë’s study was cold and dim. Although like every chamber in Ancalima Osto, it was lit by the silver light of the Silmarils, even they seemed to have little sway over its shadows, and the flickering torchlight did even less to illuminate it. If anything, it seemed to darken the shadows in the further corners rather than improve the lighting. Tyelpe slipped inside when his father called him in, taking a seat in the great ornate chair in front of Curufinwë’s desk.

“What did you want, Father?” he asked.

His father’s cold, careful dark eyes met his. “I hear you have become close to the Maia emissary,” he said.

Tyelpe flushed slightly and looked away. “That’s true,” he said simply.

“What do you know of him?” Curufinwë asked. There was something strange in his voice, but when Tyelpe looked up, he wasn’t sure what to make of the blank expression on his father’s face.

“I know that he is dedicated to Aulë, that he is a Maia of fire and a talented smith.” _I know that I am falling in love with him_.

“And you know nothing else?”

“What else do I need to know?”

Curufinwë’s eyes held his for a long moment, and one finger traced a pattern in the top of the desk. “There are some concerns among the people of the fortress that we do not know anything else,” he said. “None recall a Maia by the name of Annatar among the people of Aulë. None recall his face, either.”

“Is that so surprising?” Tyelpe asked lightly. “There were many Maiar, and they did not all cavort freely with Elves.”

“But he does,” Curufinwë pointed out immediately, in a tone of voice that left Tyelpe shifting uneasily. “It may be nothing,” he admitted after a moment. “But I would see you on your guard, my son.”

Tyelpe considered it. He could feel the pull of the silvery light whispering to him, as it always did. It was no surprise that his father would caution him to be on his guard. Anyone from the outside might be here to steal the Silmarils, and that could not be permitted. And yet…and yet.

“I do not want to be on my guard,” Tyelpe said slowly. “When I am on my guard, the simplest things seem suspicious.” He thought of Lómion, keeping close to the shadows and rarely speaking. He thought of Irissë, never speaking anymore at all. The light whispered that it should be kept, that _he_ should keep it, but it was Fëanáro’s, none of his. Tyelpe found that despite the firm root of it inside him, he preferred the golden light of the forge (the sheen of Annatar’s hair?) to the soft silver of the Silmarils. 

“That’s the point,” growled Curufinwë. “You should be on the lookout for things that are suspicious.”

“It’s…” Tyelpe struggled for words to explain his thoughts. In the back of his mind, he could hear the screams of Aqualondë. He could feel the flames of the burning ships. He could see Maitimo’s shocked and desperate face as he pleaded with his father. It twisted in his gut. Maitimo had not been a traitor. Tyelpe could not believe it; he _would_ not believe it. “Anything can look suspicious,” he said after a moment. “And it isn’t a sin to believe in someone.” He paused. “Even if they betray you,” he said finally. “It may be foolish and you will have to pay the price for your mistakes, but it isn’t wrong.”

Curufinwë gave him a long, slow look. “I will not convince you, I see,” he said, with a sigh. “You’re naïve, Telperinquar, but there’s nothing else I can say.”

Tyelpe got to his feet, pausing at the door. “No, Father,” he said clearly. “I am not naïve. I have just seen the damage done by the refusal to trust.”

He was shaking a little when he got back to his room, so he was only too pleased to find Valatanin curled up sadly in front of it. A dog. Here, at least, was someone who was easy to talk to and simple to trust. And warm. Tyelpe shivered slightly as a cold breeze blew down the back of his neck. “Hello, boy, it’s good to see you,” he said affectionately, rubbing the spot behind Valatanin’s ears he knew the dog loved to have touched. “Come on in.”

He opened the door, and the dog promptly bounded over and leaped onto the bed. Tyelpe followed him, throwing himself beside Valatanin and putting his arms around the lean, scarred body. “Things are difficult sometimes,” he said softly. The response was a concerned whine and a cold, wet nose pushed into his ear. Tyelpe shoved him down with a laugh. “Don’t do that.” He got a lick for his trouble.

“I just…” he looked up at the ceiling and sideways at the stone wall, at the lack of a window. “I want…” A sudden, fey mood gripped him, and he almost said that he wanted rid of the Silmarils, which was sheer insanity. “I want to see the light of the Trees,” he whispered instead. “The Silmarils are beautiful, but they never change. I want the doors of the Fortress open, so that all might enter and leave freely. So that all might see the light of the Silmarils. I want…” He sighed. “I want all the fighting to stop,” he said in a low voice, finally, pressing his face into that white fur to hide his tears. “I know it can’t. I know we must defeat the Dark Lord at all costs. I know, but I wish there was another way.”

Valatanin nuzzled him again, comfortingly, his tail wagging ever so slightly.

“What a good boy you are,” Tyelpe murmured.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which gifts are exchanged.

“I made you something.” Annatar looked up from the anvil as Tyelpe walked into the forge. Though a fire was lit already, it was early, and there was no one else around to see them, so Tyelpe found the courage to cross the room to him, take his hand, and kiss him deeply. Annatar kissed him back after a moment, warmth radiating from his lips to Tyelpe’s.

When the Elf pulled back, he said, “Shut your eyes and put out your hand.”

Tyelpe obeyed him and felt the heaviness of fire-warmed metal pressed into his palm. He ran his fingers across a smooth surface, a thin cylindrical bar with an ornate loop on one end and three prongs on the other. Puzzled, he opened his eyes and looked down to see a little golden key nestled in his palm.

“It’s for you,” Annatar told him. Gold, oddly, not silver, as Tyelpe might have expected. Surprisingly weighty, too, which bespoke some kind of spell or enchantment woven into it. “It’s a puzzle for you, dear Tyelpe.”

“A puzzle?”

Annatar nodded, his eyes gleaming slightly. “If you work it out, it may teach you something.”

“Thank you. It’s beautiful.” It wasn’t the kind of work Tyelpe associated with Annatar. It wasn’t as delicate; the lines of the filigree end bolder, with a subtle flame motif worked in. Tyelpe traced his fingers around it. A _key_. But where was the lock? “Am I supposed to find the lock?”

A mischievous smile hovered around Annatar’s mouth. “That, beloved, would be telling.” He tweaked Tyelpe’s nose and went back to work. Tyelpe muttered a Sindarin imprecation at him and followed.

With a little searching, he found a leather thong that he used to hang the key about his neck. As he worked on forging a set of new swords—on Annatar’s suggestion they were trying out a new annealing technique—his mind kept going over the little key. He wanted to solve the puzzle, but he suspected it would take some time. Perhaps more even than that, what he wanted was to make a gift for Annatar in return. A token. He was not certain if that was how the key was intended, but it had certainly awakened such a desire in him.

But what should he make for the Maia? Their closeness was a new and fragile thing, and he did not want to make something _too_ beautiful, _too_ precious. But he wanted, all the same, to give him something. Something fine. Something like a courting gift.

Tyelpe remembered little of his mother these days, for she had not survived the fight at Aqualondë. But he knew what her gift to his father had been, and he knew that Curufinwë prized it still. She had been a smith as well: it was not only from his grandfather’s line that Tyelpe’s gifts had come. Thinking this, Tyelpe smiled. Annatar’s gift to him might be gold, but Tyelpe’s in return would certainly be silver. Setting aside the nearly completed sword, he pulled a spool of silver wire towards himself and began to hum as he reached for his soldering implement, his hands moving with quick, precise, careful motions.

He did not make an eight-pointed star. He twisted the silver wire in his hands, watching as it caught and glittered with the red-gold firelight. If his grandfather could capture treelight in a gem, could he capture firelight in silver? It seemed worth trying, at least. As he worked, he sang softly, spooling an enchantment with his voice as he spooled the wire into an intricate design with his hands. 

It took a long time, but eventually the silver began to blossom beneath his hands. He considered setting a gem in it, but he liked the subtler effect of the enchantment he was weaving into it more, and in the end he did not. He soldered and heated and rotated it—a tiny thing, as big as a fingertip, and shimmering with a line of red-gold along it where the enchantment had caught. A little flower, blossoming on the tip of his tools.

“Annatar,” he said. “I have made a gift for you in return. No puzzle in this one, I am afraid.”

“Have you?” Silver eyes turned to him, then down to the little thing he held carefully in one hand.

“An earring,” Tyelpe explained, holding it out. “I notice you wear quite a lot of jewelry in your ears, and earrings have a special significance for me.”

Annatar looked down at it and took it carefully. “It’s lovely, Tyelpe,” he said. “A great deal of skill has gone into this.” He paused, frowning. “What is this enchantment?” He cupped his hands together and peered into the cavity he had made. “You’ve…sung firelight into this.”

“I have.” Tyelpe leaned forward to kiss him on the forehead. “It’s what I see when I look at you. Silver, threaded with firelight.”

A quick intake of breath and Annatar looked away from him for an instant. “Thank you. It’s a wonderful gift. Help me put it in?” He reached up to remove one of the little silver hoops from the cartilage of his upper ear.

“Of course.” Tyelpe waited for him to finish unclasping it and then set the flower in its place, tightening the back on until he was certain it would not come out. “There. It matches your hair and eyes.”

“Does it,” Annatar said, in a slightly strained voice. “Well. Thou art astonishing, Tyelpe.” He laced their fingers together. “Astonishing,” he said again, and he leaned his forehead against Tyelpe’s.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mairon missteps.

Mairon felt the moon rise, though there was no indication of it inside the timeless walls of Ancalima Osto. The Silmarils pulled at him; their silver suffocating light was like a river of slowly-rising water that he knew would eventually close over his head and drown him if he did not stop it.

Wolf form helped; it cleared his head and simplified his thoughts. And, as he had realized when he saw Telperinquar feeding them, it also allowed him access to parts of the fortress that would otherwise have been barred to an inquisitive Maia. But not even Fëanáro paid particular attention to the stray dogs that infested the cold and draft place. Why would he, Mairon thought angrily, when he could simply wait for them to leave or starve? But Telperinquar fed them.

Mairon padded silently up the interior corridors, following the scent trail he had left for himself. Even using the combination of wolf and Maia form, it had taken a long, long time to discover the labyrinthine trail that led to where the Silmarils were housed. But, as he’d expected, that room was empty, for Fëanáro would not trust anyone else enough to let them know where his treasures were. His fear of losing them would be his downfall. Mairon smiled darkly to himself.

The chamber where the Silmarils were kept was near the top of the tower, in the very center of it. It was not simple to reach, but between his wolf form and his Maia form, as well as the cloak into which Artanis had woven glamers of unnoticeability even from Elvish eyes, Mairon managed it eventually, and he stood blinking upward at the source of the silvery glow that bathed all of Ancalima Osto.

Three white gems there were; Fëanáro had suspended them from the ceiling like three bright stars. In this room, their light was a shade brighter than it was outside. Mairon stared at them, suspended in all their glory, and he _wanted_ —

He stood up on his feet, letting the wolf form fade and the perfectly-formed mantle of Annatar take its place, with silver curls spilling across unblemished shoulders. From within his cloak he produced a large bag of midnight-black cloth, very thick. He would need to get the gems down, first of all—without touching them, and then he could—

Something struck him in the shoulder. Pain lanced through his arm, and he looked down to see a small, feathered shaft—too short to be from a normal bow—protruding from his arm. But there shouldn’t be anyone _here_ , Mairon thought. Before he could do anything more, the pain flared and roared like wildfire up his arm and throughout his body.

~

Tyelpe woke, cold and chilled through, in an empty bed. Someone was shaking him. He blinked his eyes, surfacing in a strange haze from a dream he could not recall. He looked up into his father’s black eyes. “Come with me,” Curufinwë said, his voice remote. “You are summoned by the High King.”

“Yes, Father.”

Shaking his head to dislodge the fuzziness, Tyelpe rolled out of bed and pulled on his trousers, looking around in bewilderment for any sign of Valatanin. There was no sign of the dog other than a few white hairs scattered across the bed. Curufinwë waited silently for him to splash water on his face and straighten his clothes. He was silent, and it was a silence Tyelpe didn’t like; a sadness hovered at the corner of his father’s mouth, and he did not understand it.

Tyelpe followed his father down to the forge, where he stopped. It was empty of everyone save for the High King; Fëanáro was humming a tuneless little song to himself as he worked at a piece of metal. “Telperinquar!” he said as Tyelpe followed his father in. “I need your help. Your intuition.”

He pulled a long, sharp sword from the scabbard at his side and laid it across the anvil. “The enchantment in this sword,” he said. “Do you feel it?”

Running his hand along the blade, Tyelpe inspected it cautiously. It was cool to the touch; when he held it up to the light, he saw that the blade shimmered strangely. However it had been created, the pattern left in the metal was like a series of ripples on the top of a pond. “Curious,” he said. “The power of water?” There was a dark stain like blood along one edge, but when Tyelpe touched it, he could feel no liquid or powder. If it was blood, it was long ingrained into the blade.

Fëanáro’s eyes glittered in the red light of the forge. “Of a sort,” he replied. “It was this blade that was used to sever the hand of Morgoth’s lieutenant. I beat the enchantment into it on an anvil. Now I need that same enchantment cast into a pair of shackles, and quickly.”

“The difficulty, then, is to _cast_ the enchantment rather than to forge it?”

Fëanáro inclined his head in a nod. “Indeed.”

It would not be the same as soldering it in either. Although creating the earring had not been weaving an enchantment of the same sort; it had been something far more akin to the original design of the Silmarils, Tyelpe suspected. He licked his lips, turning the blade over and over again in his hands. “Would it not be better to have more input? More minds working on the problem?” he asked, although he knew the question alone was dangerous.

“No,” Fëanáro told him swiftly. “If you cannot help, I will do it on my own.”

“I can help,” Tyelpe returned, calm and resolute. He made no further protest, but only began to pull out the necessary molds for the casting that his grandfather desired. They worked together, speaking only of the enchantment, in low voices. The time unspooled like the dream he could not remember, almost blurring into it, but finally, they had a pair of silver-grey shackles cooling and ready.

“Well done,” the High King said, laying a hand on Tyelpe’s shoulder. “Come with me.”

The air still had a dream-like quality to it as Curufinwë and Tyelpe followed the High King through the corridors leading to the throne room. As they approached, Tyelpe began to hear a noise, a high, shattered wailing noise broken and interspersed with gasping sobs. He halted. “My king—” he began uncertainly. There was something familiar about the voice.

Fëanáro did not stop, and after a moment of waiting, Tyelpe stumbled along after him anyway. They came quite suddenly to the throne room, and Fëanáro strode in. There was a figure crumpled on the floor in front of the throne, watched by several Elves, including a nervous-looking Lómion, who was standing a few feet back, clutching a wooden bow with several short arrows tucked into a quiver at his shoulder. The figure was crying out in pain, limbs twisting and dancing without its control. Tangled silver hair spilled back along the floor, and Tyelpe’s heart moved from hovering in the area of his midsection to jumping into his throat. “ _Annatar_!”

His father caught his elbow in an iron grip before he could leap forward. “Don’t move!” he snapped.

“He’s hurt—he’s ill—”

“He’s a traitor,” Curufinwë said, pulling Tyelpe to face him. “Lómion caught him trying to take the Silmarils.”

_No. Annatar. Why?_ “There has to be a misunderstanding!” Tyelpe protested. “Father, he wouldn’t—he’s a Maia, an emissary of Valinor—”

Fëanáro strode forward. “Get him up,” he said to the guards, who pulled Annatar to his feet. He obviously couldn’t stand himself. “Put these on him.” The shackles. The shackles that Tyelpe had helped him _make_. A water enchantment to contain a fire Maia.

Annatar screamed as the cool metal touched his wrists, his eyes flying open and flaring a sudden, wild red-gold, like fuel poured on a fire. The guards let him go as the shackles snapped home, and he fell to his knees. And as he did, he changed.

The subtle, contained flicker of red beneath the silver that had so fascinated Tyelpe seemed to fountain out of him, across him. Wild curls of silver hair caught fire and turned sleek, into hanks of red-gold falling about shoulders with skin several shades darker than Annatar’s. Marks appeared on the perfect, unblemished skin of his arms and throat, long, thin scars wrapping right about his form. The curl of one in particular, poking up over Annatar’s collarbone in an unusual spiral, made Tyelpe groan as he recognized it. No. _No_. The scars that he had spent hours tracing with his fingers on Valatanin’s skin had appeared unmistakably on the flesh of his lover.

“Get him up,” Fëanáro said, and the guards pulled Annatar’s twitching body onto its knees. Despite the pained noises he was making, he glared up at the High King with burning, helpless anger. “So, Sauron, servant of Morgoth, thou returnest.”

_Sauron_. Tyelpe’s knees almost gave out. When he had spoken of trust—he could not have meant _this_ , could he? Perhaps his father was right, and he was a fool. He staggered; Curufinwë caught him.

Sauron spat at Fëanáro’s feet, but the High King only smiled at him, twisting a hand in that long red-gold hair and dragging his head back. “Defiance does not become thee, servant of Morgoth, lieutenant of a destroyed fortress and a doomed army. Although thou wert clever to make your way into Ancalima Osto, thou wert not clever _enough_.”

If Sauron tried to speak, it was not audible over the grinding of his teeth and the apparently uncontrollable dancing of his limbs.

“Lómion. Stand forth.”

Lómion, rocking nervously on the balls of his feet, did so, going to one knee in front of his grand-uncle. 

“You were watching the Silmarils, were you not, nephew?”

A jerky nod. “I’m sorry if I have overstepped. I was guarding them for you.”

“You did not tell anyone this, did you?”

“I didn’t. I…people don’t really trust me,” Lómion said softly. “So I didn’t tell anyone.”

“But when you saw the Maia entering, you stopped him.”

“That’s right.”

Fëanáro put a hand on his shoulder. “Rise, Lómion, thou hast performed a great deed today. I will see to it that thou art well rewarded.”

“The only reward I need is your favor,” Lómion murmured, turning an awed and hopeful face upward. Tyelpe felt sick. What had he done? What had he taken to his bed? What had he—he shut his eyes, trying to force the pain away. After a moment of careful breathing, it receded a little, to his relief, and he was able to open them again, to see that Fëanáro had turned back to Sauron and had raised his right hand for inspection. He took off the silver bracelet that Annatar always wore, that Annatar had so flinched from Tyelpe touching, and now Tyelpe could see why. There was a ring of ridged white scar tissue all the way around his wrist, where the almost fishbelly-white hand joined the darker arm.

With a dark smile, Fëanáro tilted Sauron’s chin up to look at him. “Tomorrow,” he said silkily, “we shall see if you can as readily reattach a head as you have somehow done a hand.” Then he turned to the guards. “Put him in chains. He will not be able to escape with those shackles binding him.”

As they obeyed, Tyelpe hovered by the door. Curufinwë tried to pull him away, but he shook his head. 

“Annatar—” Tyelpe reached out and caught the prisoner’s sleeve as he was taken past. Red-gold eyes—the _same_ red-gold eyes—flickered up to him, even though his muscles did not stop their twitching, wretched dance. “Was it all a lie?” Tyelpe whispered, and he could hear the anguish in his own voice. “All of it—just to get to the Silmarils?”

There was no emotion at all in those red eyes as Sauron’s face split in two with a ghastly gash-like grin. “Of course, Tyelpe. You played your part admirably.” His lips twisted. “And such a fun little toy to take to bed.”

Tyelpe recoiled immediately, as if he had been burned. He stared after the Maia as he was dragged away, feeling suddenly exhausted, empty, and stripped.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tyelpe uncovers a secret.

He staggered blindly back to his empty bedroom, stared down at the bed with its muddled covers and the thin sprinklings of white fur adorning it, and promptly backed away from it, walking back out the door again. He paused in the hallway, pressing his face against his forearm. There were no tears forthcoming, but there was pain in his throat and his eyes felt hot. He wanted—to distract himself. To work on something. The thought of going to the forge brought to mind memories—too many—but it was better than the alternative.

He stumbled down the stairs again; halfway down he ran into a concerned Huan, who was whining soft, low, and continuously. Tyelpe buried his face in Huan’s fur and sobbed, still without being able to force out any tears. The dog pressed a nose into his ear.

He did not know how long he stayed there, bowed over and crying without tears, the wrenching sobs twisting his body up as much as whatever poison had been used on Annatar—on Sauron—had twisted his. Huan stayed beside him for all of it, and no one else found them there. When Tyelpe felt that he could stand again, he pulled himself upright and continued toward the forge.

Entering, he automatically stirred up the fire with one hand and went over to get out his materials, only to realize he had been clutching something tightly in his right hand, so tightly that it was hurting him. It took a moment of intense concentration to force the now-cramping muscles to release it, and the little key that Annatar had given him fell to his chest on its thong of leather. It had left dark red indentations in the palm of his hand.

Anger took Telperinquar then. What had been the point of being trusting and open? Of falling in _love_? Fëanáro had been right down to the last detail. The only reason someone had wanted Tyelpe was to steal the Silmarils, the only light left in a lightless, hollow fortress. With a cry, he flung the key from him into the deepest part of the fire, watching as the thong blazed up in an instant; then he turned away.

The work on the shackles had been tidied away, but the wire he had used to make the little earring still lay out. Tyelpe swept it from the table with one rapid motion of his hand, then reached for whatever metal he had near and thrust it into the forge to melt it so he could begin to beat it.

The repetitive motion soothed him a little. He could take the pain and focus it into shaping the metal. He could force himself to think about the movements of his arm and the temperature of the metal instead of the thought that the whole time he had been working at the forge with Annatar, that he had been cuddled up to Valatanin, that he had been _inside_ the Maia, it had been Sauron. The damage he could have done. The damage he _would_ have done without Lómion’s vigilance.

And yet…

Something teased at his mind, the more tired he got. 

_All of it—just to get at the Silmarils?_

_Of course, Tyelpe_. A smooth, immediate response. He could feel the hollow truth underlying the words. The mockery. If there had been even one touch of uncertainty or sorrow, he thought bitterly, he would have been able to believe that it hadn’t all been a lie. If there had been just that one little undercurrent—

He stopped, the hammer poised for another blow, frowning. One small tremor in Sauron’s voice, and he would have unthinkingly stayed at his side no matter what. Any indication that what was between them had been truthful, and he would never have given it up. Tyelpe looked at the hammer. He put the hammer down. 

True, Tyelpe had decided to be trusting, as he had told his father. True, it must have been easy to fool him. But then why not keep trying to fool him? Fëanáro was going to have Annatar executed. Tyelpe was certain the enchanted blade would be enough to kill a Maia. Surely Annatar knew that his only hope was for someone to rescue him? It might not be much of a hope, but it was better than nothing. And he had left himself with nothing.

He walked back in front of the fireplace, frowning. Why would Annatar have reason to cut his ties with Tyelpe? Sauron, Tyelpe reminded himself. Just to hurt him. That might be reason enough, but it was hardly a compelling reason when faced with the imminent possibility of death.

Something glittered in the fireplace, and Tyelpe stopped, looking in. The little key that Annatar had given him still lay, whole and entire, in the hottest part of the forge where he had thrown it. It should have melted down long minutes ago, but it had not. With a sudden wild surge of an emotion he could not even identify, Tyelpe reached for the tongs and plucked it out, dropping it onto the bench in front of him. 

Golden letters appeared, twining along the inside of the key, even as he watched, and Tyelpe’s heart twisted as he read them:

_Telperinquar and Mairon._ He reached out without thinking, but did not burn himself. The key was cool to the touch. “Oh,” Tyelpe sighed softly. Without meaning to, he had solved the puzzle. A puzzle, now that he saw the answer in his hand, it was clear that Annatar had never intended him to solve. _Mairon_. Sauron’s Maiar name. “You bastard,” he whispered, and now—now there were tears in his eyes.

For a long moment, he stood holding the key. Then he scrabbled in the drawer for another thong and slipped it back around his neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tengwar images generated with Glaemscribe; thanks to Lyra for pointing me in that direction.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tyelpe frees Annatar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for mention of rape, though it's quickly dismissed

It did not take a long time to discover where Annatar was being held. And as the grandson of the High King, it was not so difficult to be given access, either. The dungeon cell was well below ground level, and Annatar—Mairon—was curled up on one side of the chamber, his head bowed and his red-gold hair spilling across his shoulders like lava. His hands were fixed together above his head in the blue-shaded shackles that Tyelpe had helped to construct, and a chain held them against the wall.

“Annatar,” Tyelpe said softly, slipping into the cell.

Annatar looked up slowly, his face pinched and weary. “Come to gloat?” he asked with an amused smile. “Or are you here to have some recompense for my treachery when I cannot hope to escape?” He licked his lips and leaned forward. “I imagine you’re too noble to rape me, but I’ve been wrong before.”

“I found what you engraved on the key,” Tyelpe told him calmly. “You would have done better to pretend you were still interested in manipulating me, because I began to wonder why you would so neatly sever a potential lifeline.”

“Mind games?” Annatar asked with a grin. “I like that in a man.”

“And you’re still doing it.” Tyelpe knelt in front of him, cupping Annatar’s face. “I’ve all but offered to rescue you, and you’re trying to send me away.” He pressed his forehead into Annatar’s, and Annatar squirmed, trying to pull away.

“Get away from me, _Elf_ ,” he snarled. “I don’t want your pity.”

“Tell me—why did you come to steal the Silmarils, Annatar?” Tyelpe was already running his hands across the manacles. He had helped make them and knew they had no obvious weak points, but it never hurt to reconfirm.

Annatar sighed. “If I tell you, will you leave?” he asked, his voice low and rough.

“Yes,” Tyelpe replied immediately.

“I did not come to steal them,” Annatar murmured. “I came to cast them away. They have done enough damage in Middle Earth.”

It was so startlingly what Tyelpe had wanted to hear that he pulled back, dismayed, wondering if he had had it all wrong—if this had really all been a clever game of Annatar’s. It wasn’t impossible. He could not know. But his hand tightened around the key. He had to make a choice, and trust was not an easy choice, but in the end it was the only choice he thought he could make, difficult or not.

“Where are they?” Tyelpe asked, tightly.

“You said that you would leave!” Annatar’s head went up, his eyes flaming with sudden fear.

“I lied,” Tyelpe told him calmly. “As you have been lying this whole time.”

“You _fool_ ,” Annatar gritted out. “I will not tell you where they are.”

“Then I will sit here until dawn with you and we will both lose our heads,” Tyelpe told him cheerfully.

“I am _Morgoth’s lover_ ,” Annatar raged at him.

“Are you?” Tyelpe asked with interest. “I suppose he must be kinder than I thought as well.”

“You foolish, impossible Elf!” Fire surged for an instant in Annatar’s form before the shackles subdued it.

“Well, if you will not tell me, perhaps you can lead me.” Tyelpe frowned at the shackles again. True, he did not think he could break them, but he knew their inner workings well…and there was the golden key. With a whispered prayer to Eru that Annatar was certain to be offended by, Tyelpe leaned forward and began to work the little key into the lock of the shackles.

“ _What are you doing, are you insane?_ ” hissed Annatar.

“Hmmm…possibly.” Tyelpe dropped a kiss onto his forehead as he kept working at the lock.

“Stop!”

“What are you going to do, yell for the guards?”

Annatar growled at him. “I think I’d rather you raped me than this.”

“I have no doubt, you seem to be rather excited by helplessness in the bedroom.” The lock clicked open. “There. You’re free, O Sauron the Defiler. Are you going to kill me?”

Sighing heavily, Annatar rubbed his wrists. “I ought to chain you up in those shackles and leave you here,” he hissed.

“I would rather you didn’t,” Tyelpe told him, nuzzling a head into his shoulder. “Besides, they aren’t designed to hold an Elf; I could probably wriggle free if I tried. I might dislocate a thumb, though.” He felt wonderful, as if he were walking on clouds. He had been right—he had been _right_ to trust Annatar.

“You fool,” Annatar told him again, and then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he threaded his hands into Tyelpe’s hair and kissed him, deep and biting and desperate. “Fine. But hurry. We have not much time, I think.”

He took Tyelpe’s hand and the two of them headed for the door, quick but cautious.

“Distract the guards,” Annatar murmured, and then he shrank quite suddenly into dog form—no, Tyelpe realized, looking at the size of him and remembering the tales told by warriors returning from battling Morgoth’s forces—wolf form. A great black wolf, but like Mairon as Annatar, Valatanin was silver-white.

Despite his size and the fact that Tyelpe knew exactly where he was, Valatanin seemed to blend into the shadows almost immediately, his presence dimming to no more than a whisper of a fur, a patch of shadow a hair less dark than those surrounding it. Tyelpe did not expect he would have to distract the guards very much.

Indeed, a few quick words and some questions about the prisoner were enough to keep their eyes studiously on him, the grandson of the High King, and to let the shadowy bundle of fur slip past. Tyelpe followed a few moments later, because he was about ninety percent certain that Annatar was going to try to slip away from him in hopes of being able to go back after the Silmarils himself, and Tyelpe did not intend to let him. But then, he had a few tricks of his own up his sleeve.

He was quite used to tracking dogs through the fortress, and many of the pregnant bitches were even stealthier than Valatanin, so he was able with some effort to keep pace with the wolf’s disappearing tail and to come up behind him as they climbed sideways through the third odd passageway, following a trail of glimmering mirrors laid overhead. “Annatar,” he hissed. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

“Oh, confound you,” snapped the Maia, resuming his bipedal form with an angry grunt. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why did you give me a key with your own name on it?” Tyelpe responded, slipping his hand into Annatar’s. The Maia looked away.

“It’s foolish,” he said harshly.

“So you’ve said. But I’d like to know what’s going to become of my heart.”

“Your heart?”

“I did give it to you.” He squeezed Annatar’s hand, and Annatar groaned.

“You idiotic, sentimental Elf,” he growled. “Come on, then.”

Higher they went, then higher still. Tyelpe had known intellectually how high the fortress went, but he had not really had a sense of it in his bones. It seemed to go on forever. “Is it true that the dark lord’s forces were beaten back?” he asked Annatar as they went to climb something like the thirtieth staircase. Annatar paused, his fists clenching and unclenching at his side, the torn and dirtied white robes he wore standing out pale in the silvery light. He was all fire now, save for the robes, and Tyelpe wondered how he could ever have hidden that inner light as he had.

“It is true,” Annatar told him tersely. “We were forced to retreat. Our fortress fell and was destroyed. Melkor and I protected as many of our folk as we could, but many more died. If it had not been for Artanis and Maedhros, I think we might all have perished.”

Tyelpe stilled. “I believe my grandfather has much to answer for. I believe _I_ have much to answer for.”

“Perhaps,” Annatar agreed. “But Melkor and I choose not to desire vengeance anymore.” He wrinkled his nose and rubbed the scar on his wrist. “We have seen enough of it. If the Silmarils can be scattered, perhaps Fëanáro’s madness will break.”

It was a hope, at least. Tyelpe could barely remember his grandfather before the touch of the Silmarils. The fortress seemed to have a way of scouring everything from his mind other than its ubiquitous silvery light. He shivered. He hadn’t thought about it, and now that he did, it was chilling.

“Come, if you’re coming,” Annatar said brusquely, and they hurried off again.

Tyelpe had half-expected that the chamber where the Silmarils lay would be behind an ornate door or at least that there would be some indication. Of course there was not. Appropriate as it might be, any indication would serve to tell anyone who came this far where they were. Annatar simply hustled him through a door, and the white light broke over them both. “There.”

The now-unfettered flame that flickered beneath Annatar’s skin and shifted beneath his hair seemed pale and washed-out beneath the white light above. The three Silmarils hung like bright stars from thin, silver chains affixed to the ceiling. Tyelpe looked at Annatar expectedly. The Maia was frowning. 

“How are we going to get them down?” Tyelpe asked.

Annatar sighed. “I was hoping I’d have an idea by the time we got here,” he explained, sounding petulant.

“Ah.” Tyelpe frowned up at them. “You know,” he said after a moment. “I imagine there is a ladder in one of the maintenance closets around here. They’re needed to repair the mirror system. I’ll just go get one.”

“Tyelpe.” Annatar caught his wrist as he headed for the door. He looked so different like this, with his fire no longer muted and hidden, with his scars on full display. He pulled Tyelpe to him and kissed him, hard, on the mouth. “I did not mean to hurt you. Not like this.”

“I know,” Tyelpe whispered.

He did not let himself think about the magnitude of what he was doing, and yet, it was difficult to step back out of the room. Guilt pulled at him, and then he realized it was a reluctance to leave the beautiful bright white light. _It is not for you,_ he told himself sternly, and he did not know if he meant that because of who he had fallen in love with or because of who his grandfather was. Somehow, he stumbled out of the room and made his way along the hallway until he did find one of the closets he was looking for and managed to dig out a ladder. He was nearly back when he nearly cannoned into another Elf, who looked at him, looked at the light spilling out of the door behind him, turned, and ran.

Tyelpe swore loudly, dragged the ladder back in and yelled, “Annatar! They know!”

“Quickly, then. Give me the ladder.”

He slammed the ladder down and held it in place as Annatar raced to clamber up it. Already, he could hear the sound of shouts and crashing metal. They had moments, if that. He forced his hands to stay steady on the ladder.

Annatar stretched out, but for some reason he reached for the chains and not the Silmarils themselves, and his hand had just closed around them and started to pull when Fëanáro himself burst into the room and without pausing for a moment, drew an arrow from his quiver and fired.

“Annatar!” Tyelpe shrieked, and Annatar was beginning to pull back when the arrow took him in the upper arm, and he swore loudly. Two of the Silmarils swung back into position. The silver chain of the third snapped, and Annatar grabbed for it but lost his grip. He half-fell back against the ladder. Tyelpe leaned out and put his hand out as the Silmaril fell.

“ _No_!” Annatar cried. The Silmaril dropped into Tyelpe’s palm with barely a sound. It was warm against his skin. It felt almost like touching Annatar’s hair. “Tyelpe?” Annatar was staring at him.

“Telperinquar, stand down!” roared his grandfather.

“Tyelpe, _go_!” Annatar yelled.

“But you—” The ladder. The warriors.

“ _GO!”_

He ran.

Somehow he ducked past his grandfather and the retinue behind him, and then he was running, heart pounding, searching for the stairs, for the way up. He had never been this far up. He did not even know if there was a way out of the fortress up this way. But he obviously could not go down.

His heart pounded in his chest as he ran. His lungs ached. What would happen to him and Annatar now, he wondered. Fëanáro still held two of the Silmarils. Would it not be better to go back and try to bargain with the third? Perhaps he should not be so hasty to remove its beauty from the others.

But Annatar had given everything for this chance. Tyelpe shut his eyes for an instant to brush the tears out of them, and he kept running up the winding stairs.

Further up the fortress was less finished. He could hear the wind whistling above him, and the shouts and yells and pounding of feet below him. The stairs were not stone, this high, but slats of wood, and there was scaffolding remaining in places. Higher up, the air was thinner and colder, too. How high had he come? How much remained?

And suddenly, he reached the end. He pushed his way up through one final trap door, and there above him spread the sky, dark and studded with stars as always. Tyelpe stumbled over to the edge, where there was a wall of a few feet high. Looking down, he saw only grey swirling clouds, and he felt almost dizzy. What could he do now? He paced back and forth, staring up and staring out. _I came to cast them away_. But where could they be cast away to?

The trapdoor opened. “Telperinquar.” 

“Father.” He took a step back and realized he could take no more steps without falling. It would be a long fall and a swift death.

“Stand down.” Curufinwë’s voice was cold but gentle. “We can tell Fëanáro how you were bespelled. You will be safe, if only you return what you have taken.”

Tyelpe looked down at his hand, at the glimmering white jewel lying in it. The light of it so white that it had bled all color from Annatar. It was no longer warm in his hand, though it was not uncomfortably cold either. All he would have to was push it towards his father, and his life could go back to the way it had been. Quiet. Safe.

Empty.

He closed his hand around it, looking around again. Curufinwë came up to stand before him, hand outstretched. Beyond him stood Fëanáro and all his warriors. There was no sign of Annatar. For all Tyelpe knew, he might be dead already. If Tyelpe did not surrender, there was no hope for either of them. He could try to use the Silmaril to bargain for Annatar’s safety, he supposed, but he had little hope that it would succeed.

He looked up towards the night sky and the stars shining with their silver light. He sighed. These days he barely even remembered his life in Valinor. Everything was forging weapons in a darkened fortress for a war that he no longer believed in. The stray dogs would survive without him. Lómion had Fëanáro’s approval, and he would be fine. Tyelpe had never yet succeeded in speaking with Irissë, and his father—

“I’m sorry, Father,” Tyelpe murmured.

He saw Curufinwë’s face change, sliding from cool confidence into a kind of horrified despair, just for an instant. He leapt forward, but he could not leap faster than Tyelpe could throw up his arm and open his palm.

The Silmaril winked with light as it rose, the silver links of the chain the last thing to part from Tyelpe’s hand. It arced up and away, farther and farther, until it was just one light of many among the stars—and there it hung, shining, its silver light free to expand across the land of Arda. “Varda, care for it,” Tyelpe whispered, and then there were hands on him, and he was dragged down into darkness.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tyelpe wakens in somewhat dire straits.

He woke to cold and damp. His head and hand ached, and he slowly realized that the one was pressed against the other. He groaned, and a low, clear, terrified voice said, “Tyelpe?”

He knew that voice. He had never heard it sound like that. “Annatar?”

A ragged breath. “I thought thee dead.”

Slowly, Tyelpe sat up, rubbing his head, then winced and drew his hand away as it encountered sticky fluid and more pain. “Not dead,” he mumbled slowly. “Oh, my head.” Someone had hit it quite hard, and it was bleeding. Now that he was starting to become a little more aware, he could feel stickiness all down the side of his face; he must be covered in blood. No wonder Annatar had thought he was dead. He wondered who had struck him, and if his father also thought he was dead. No—he would not have been placed with Annatar if they thought him dead. Why was he here with Annatar anyway? Perhaps it was mercy or some strange sense of justice, or perhaps no one had thought about it very hard.

Annatar was chained up once again, his hands above his head and trapped within those cold manacles. Tyelpe himself was not chained, but his shirt and tool-belt were gone, as was the key that Annatar had given him. There was nothing left that he might have been able to use to free them. But he was not chained, at least, which meant he could crawl across the damp cell to curl up at Annatar’s side.

“You fool,” Annatar told him, as he pressed himself shiveringly against the warm, living flame. “Why did you have to get involved?”

“I did better than you did,” Tyelpe mumbled. “We may not have gotten all three, but one is something to be proud of, is it not? And it may yet weaken the hold of the other two.”

“ _I did not want to trade your life for a Silmaril_!” Annatar half-shouted. “I would have traded mine for three, if I had to, but I did not want to do that either.” He shuddered. “I cannot even _hold_ you.”

“Then I will hold you.” Tyelpe put his arms around him. “Annatar, it is all right, I do not fear the Halls of Mandos.” _They cannot be darker than the brightest fortress_.

Annatar turned his body towards him. “ _I_ am afraid,” he said hotly. “I am afraid I will never see you or Melkor again. He will cut my head from my body with that sword of his, and I think it may destroy me utterly.”

“But—your hand—”

“It is not mine, and I nearly died in gaining it.” Droplets of hot liquid splashed on Tyelpe’s face, and he looked up to see that Annatar was crying; his tears were golden. Tyelpe’s heart twisted. To lose Annatar forever, when he had only just started to see what they could become together—

“Oh, no,” he whispered. “I do not believe it. Eru would not be so cruel.”

“You know nothing of the cruelty of the Valar or he who spawned them,” Annatar spat, his beautiful face twisted with an ugly rage. “I will die and I will be no more and I will never see those I love again.”

Tyelpe pressed his face into Annatar’s side. “Annatar…” he breathed. “I _won’t_ believe it, beloved, I will find thee again, no matter what.”

“If anyone could, it would be thee or Him,” Annatar admitted.

“Him? Oh.” Things had happened so rapidly that Tyelpe had not really had a chance to process the ‘Morgoth’s lover’ aspect of the revelations about Annatar. He paused. “Will he be very angry about me?”

“What? Oh, no.” Annatar shook his head. “The vows between us are our own. Neither of us has ever seen a reason the other could not have another lover if he wished.” He paused moodily. “It has rarely come up before,” he admitted. Then he looked down at Tyelpe. “I suppose I ought to have told you, somehow. Perhaps without mentioning names.”

“Well, it hardly matters now.” He could be angry with Annatar later. There was too little time left for anger now. 

He took Annatar’s face gently between both hands. “Listen to me, beloved. I swear I will find thee, no matter what. No matter the cost or the challenge, I will not let anything come between us, and I will bring thee home, no matter how far thou hast wandered.”

Annatar took in a slow, shuddering breath. “I believe thee,” he said wonderingly. “Still, I am sorry. I hurt thee and I failed thee in the end.”

“No,” Tyelpe told him firmly and kissed him. “Thou freed me. Hold to that.”

They could not hold one another, but Tyelpe could hold Annatar, and he did. It would be day soon enough, and they would need all their courage then.

Some time later, and Tyelpe thought it might be close to dawn, he heard a soft voice calling him from the door of the cell. Annatar looked up as he did. “It’s Lómion,” he murmured, and as he soon as he said that, Tyelpe recognized the quiet voice.

“I need to see what he wants,” he whispered. “Don’t worry, I won’t leave you.”

“If he can get you out—Tyelpe— _Tyelpe_ , you fool—”

He left Annatar hissing like an angry cat—which, despite the circumstances, made him smile—and hurried over to the door. “Lómion, is that you?”

“Tyelpe!” Lómion sounded almost hysterical. “Are you all right?”

“As all right as I suppose I can reasonably be expected to be when I’m about to be executed,” Tyelpe responded.

“I’m so sorry!” He was clearly frantic. “I just wanted the High King to—to see me for once, I wanted…” He sobbed.

“Shhh, it’s all right, you didn’t know. I think anyone else would have done the same. Annatar could have trusted me, and he didn’t, and—well—look, at least one of the Silmarils is gone. In the long run, things may get better.”

“But what about _you_?”

“Lómion…”

“I might be able to paralyze the guards—the venom on my arrows worked on Annatar—”

“ _Lómion_. No. I don’t want you to risk yourself for me.” He heard Annatar growl behind him, but ignored it. “Listen to me, you have to care for your mother. All right?”

“Tyelpe, you’re my only friend,” Lómion whispered. “Mother doesn’t…she doesn’t even _see_ me.”

“And you’re my friend, too,” Tyelpe said urgently. “Please. Just bide your time. Look for a way to get out.”

There was a long pause before Lómion spoke again. “Tyelpe,” he whispered. “I won’t—I’ll never forget you, I promise. You’ll always be my friend.”

“You’ll always be mine,” Tyelpe promised fiercely. “I’m sorry about how things happened. I’m sorry I couldn’t get you and Irissë out. Just stay strong.”

There was a sniff. “Yes. I will.”

“You’re an idiot,” Annatar told Tyelpe when he returned.

“He wasn’t going to be able to get us out, and he’d have gotten himself killed.”

“Us, no. You, possibly.”

“I wasn’t going to risk him.”

Annatar fumed, but did not push it any further. Instead, he rested his chin on Tyelpe’s head and wriggled against him.

“I love thee,” Tyelpe whispered finally. “I love thee, Annatar.”

“I love thee, too,” the Maia whispered back, so quiet it was almost inaudible.


	15. Chapter 15

They woke again to the rough hands of Tyelpe’s relatives, those who remained. Curufinwë and Ambarussa did not look at him. Morifinwë and Turkafinwë did look, but there was no change in either of their expressions. Only Makalaurë gave him an anguished glance, then squeezed his arm in a comforting fashion when the others were not looking.

The two of them were taken to the throne room and made to kneel before Fëanáro.

“One of thee is an enemy, and the other is a traitor,” Fëanáro said coolly.

“I am not a traitor,” Tyelpe retorted swiftly. “The Silmarils have poisoned your mind, Grandfather.”

Fëanáro acted as if he had not heard. “I am a merciful king,” he said softly. “It will not be a slow death for either of thee.” Curufinwë’s eyes flickered for an instant to Tyelpe, and he wondered if his father had pleaded. He still could not forget what had become of Maitimo, and it made his stomach twist, but at least he would not be put to such a torment. 

Beside him, Annatar began to laugh, cracked and hollow. “Thy fortress will fall, High King of rocks and rubble,” he snarled. “If thou canst so easily throw away thine own true kin for the sin of trying to save thee, thou art irredeemable.”

Curufinwë clearly had no problems hurting Annatar, because he struck him hard in the chin with the base of his spear. Tyelpe winced at the crack, but Annatar’s low laughter did not abate.

“Bring the Maia,” Fëanáro said. “It may yet be that Telperinquar is ensorcelled, and it will become apparent once he is dead.” He gestured to a thick block of stone in front of the throne.

Annatar grinned as he was pulled to his feet. “Ensorcelled?” he laughed. “I had no need. The little slut opened his legs for me the moment he saw me— _ghk—_ ” Tyelpe’s father had struck him in the stomach with the butt of his spear, doubling him over. Tyelpe bit back a sympathetic groan. It was so obvious what Annatar was doing, and it _hurt_ , and he didn’t want to watch him die. What if Annatar was right? What if the cold, glimmering sword in Fëanáro’s hand destroyed his _eäla_ utterly?

_Please_ , Tyelpe begged anyone who was listening, and he couldn’t help but struggle against the tight hold his uncles had on him. 

Curufinwë and Makalaurë brought Annatar up to the throne and forced him down again, his head sideways on the stone block, his red-gold hair spilling down across it, as if the blood were flowing already. Tyelpe cried out, a soft little noise he could not help. His eyes caught Annatar’s golden ones, and he saw fear and rage and love all mingled.

There was white light blazing in Fëanáro’s eyes as he stood and raised the sword. He looked like the righteous hero he had been of old, standing above the body of his defeated enemy. Tyelpe wanted to look away, but he could not make himself; he could not deprive Annatar of any comfort he might be able to give him. _I will find you_ , he mouthed, and Annatar’s eyes flickered for a moment, and he smiled, as brightly as if they were working together in the forge. It lit up his entire _eäla_.

Fëanáro’s arm tensed. 

_No,_ Tyelpe thought despairingly.

And then the wall exploded.

Debris scattered everywhere. The Elves nearest the wall were blown backwards, landing in crumpled positions all across the throne room. The violence of the explosion threw Makalaurë and Curufinwë to the ground, and they let go of Annatar, who slid sideways almost preternaturally fast as Fëanáro brought the sword down, and it landed inches to the side of his neck with a ringing clang.

For a moment, Tyelpe thought it was still black night outside, and then he realized that the blackness was that of a tremendous storm. A monstrous bolt of lightning shot down, and he saw that there was a figure, backlit, his hair streaming wildly about him. “UNHAND MY MAIA,” roared the Dark Lord.

Tyelpe stared in awe from his position on the floor. Behind Morgoth stood—not a large army, certainly, but enough. Enough Elves and Orcs standing together that they would not be easily cut down. At their head, a figure with streaming red hair had his hand on the arm of a stooping, dark-haired figure. Lómion. And—it couldn’t be.

“Uncle?” Tyelpe whispered, even as Makalaurë scrambled to his feet and screamed, “ _Nelyo_!”

“Come on!” Annatar’s hand grabbed at Tyelpe’s shoulder, dragging him to his feet. “No time!” And they were running, breathless, faces turned to the wind. Fëanáro’s voice was calling orders, and so were other people’s, and Tyelpe could not seem to make any of it out. All he could do was run and try to keep up with his Maia—Morgoth’s Maia?—and there was wind and rain and confusion.

“Jump,” Annatar told him, and Tyelpe hesitated for a half-instant. “ _Jump_ , damn you!” So he jumped, and they were falling, and then there were arms around him.

“Retreat!” called Maitimo’s voice, as commanding as ever, and there was just rushing wind and howling wind and lashing rain and through it all, Annatar’s fierce heat at his back.

They landed with a bump on a rocky, windswept ledge. “ _Precious_ ,” growled the voice of the Dark Lord, and Tyelpe turned wearily to find that he had gathered Annatar up in his arms and was kissing him fiercely and desperately, while Annatar clutched at him and gasped into his mouth. Tyelpe stared at them, then looked away as the two of them began to murmur loving words towards one another.

“Are you all right, Tyelpe?” Lómion asked him breathlessly. “I’m sorry, I know you said not to do anything, but I couldn’t not—not when it was my fault, so I—I got out of the fortress and—they were already almost here, they just needed to know _where_ you were going to be, so—”

“You did well, Lómion,” Tyelpe cut him off. “You did so well. You were amazing. Thank you.” Beyond him, the red-haired figure of Maitimo strode up, giving him a quick smile. His arm was slipped around Makalaurë’s waist—when had Makalaurë even been able to follow? He must have practically thrown himself out of the window when he’d seen Maitimo.

“You’re well, then, Telperinquar?” he asked, and Tyelpe nodded, awkwardly. “The Silmarils?”

“Two we could do nothing about,” Tyelpe confessed sadly. “But one—” He pointed to the sky, to where it glimmered. “One I threw to Varda, and I am glad of it.”

“One is still a victory.” Maitimo paused. “You…held the stone in hand and threw it away?”

“Well, it was that or the two of us had died for nothing—so I thought.”

“Still. That cannot have been easy. It was very well done. Very well done indeed.” He smiled, though the smile held a tinge of sadness. “One day, we will free them,” he said, very quietly. “One day, I know I will have all my brothers back, and I thank you for moving us closer to that day.” He turned to Makalaurë, whose eyes were welling up with tears.

“I’m so, so sorry, Tyelpe,” Makalaurë said breathlessly. “Nelyo, I can’t—I can’t possibly give an apology sufficient—”

“Hush, brat.” Maitimo ruffled his hair. “I’m just glad you’re here. Finno will be so happy to see you.”

“Tyelpe—” Annatar’s hand slipped round his waist, and Annatar’s lips moved across his throat and up his ear. Tyelpe yelped at the unexpected contact.

“ _Annatar_! This— _hngkh_ —these are my _uncles_ —Annatar— _stop that_ —”

Both hands slipped around his chest and Annatar rested his chin on Tyelpe’s shoulder. “Well, Maedhros, I am very much afraid your nephew has seduced me,” he drawled.

_Maedhros?_ Maitimo glared at him. “If you hurt a _hair_ on his head, Mairon—or if Melkor does—”

“He tried very hard to sacrifice himself for me,” Tyelpe put in quietly, feeling distinctly better now that he could reach up and twisted a hand in Annatar’s hair, now that he could feel seen again. “Very hard indeed.”

“Hm.” Maitimo did not seem wholly convinced, but he took his left hand off his sword and gave them a stern nod. “Lieutenant, your people are still camped in our forest, and it does not look as if there will be anyplace else for them immediately. But then I’m sure Lord Melkor will tell you what has been going on.”

“I am afraid we are in your debt,” Annatar said, easily enough. “But, Tyelpe, come, do come, you must meet Lord Melkor.”

“Um,” said Tyelpe. He was not at all certain he had to meet Lord Melkor, but he let Annatar pull him across the rocky scree anyway and present him to the tall, black-cloaked figure in a sharply-spiked iron crown.

“And who is this, Little Flame?” the Dark Lord asked, with a lazy smirk.

“This is Telperinquar, son of Curufinwë, grandson of Fëanáro,” Annatar answered, nibbling at Tyelpe’s neck.

“ _Annatar_!”

“What? You’re _delicious_.”

“ _Stop it_.”

“Oh, fine.” He combed his hands through Tyelpe’s hair instead. “My lord, he is much nicer than his grandfather. He threw away one of the Silmarils, and he saved my life. Also, isn’t he fetching?”

The Dark Lord chuckled. “You do have a weakness for black hair, don’t you, my Maia?” Then he gave Tyelpe a deep bow. “For saving my most precious Lieutenant, I owe you a debt of thanks, Telperinquar.”

“Um,” squeaked Tyelpe. “You’re welcome.”

“I feel you owe him more than that,” Annatar purred, licking briefly at Tyelpe’s ear. “But only if dear Tyelpe desires it.”

“What are you…”

The Vala’s smile turned dark. “If and when he desires it, I shall be happy to have you both,” he said smoothly. 

Tyelpe sputtered, nearly choking on his own spit. “I—ah. Yes, well. Perhaps not _today_ , Annatar, we’ve been up nearly all night and we both nearly died.”

“So tomorrow then?” the Maia said cheerfully.

“I’ll think about it,” Tyelpe told him firmly, and he smiled and nuzzled Tyelpe’s cheek.

“Whatever you both command,” he murmured, his voice turning sultry for an instant, and then he dropped the posturing and twined his fingers with Tyelpe’s. He tightened their fingers together, and Tyelpe suddenly realized that the Maia was trembling a little.

“Beloved,” he whispered. “It’s all right.” The Dark Lord stepped up solicitously, his motions deliberately nonthreatening, and laid a hand on Annatar’s shoulder.

“I’m fine,” Annatar growled angrily, sounding agitated, the tremors not abating in the slightest. 

“Let us hold you anyway,” Tyelpe told him firmly, and he smiled at the sudden flutter of Annatar’s eyelashes as the Maia yielded to the authority he deliberately let suffuse his voice.

“So it’s not just his hair that you enjoy,” murmured the Vala to Annatar, and he stepped forward so that the two of them could press Annatar’s body tight between them. He was warm and safe, and Tyelpe rested his head against Annatar’s and took a long breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! just a very short epilogue left!


	16. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> v short but Olórin still has a few things to say

“I told you that you did not know how strong they could be,” Gandalf told Mairon smugly.

They were standing together at the edge of the forest, looking up at the sky, where the single Silmaril still burned. Behind them, in the encampment, they could hear Tyelpe’s excited voice making suggestions for a prosthetic hand for Maedhros, which Mairon thought would be a delightful challenge to work on him with. Maedhros’s amused voice cut in occasionally, as did Fingon’s, and even Lómion’s low, nervous laughter sounded once or twice. Makalaurë’s harp was adding to the noise.

“Hush,” Mairon told him sulkily. “ _You_ were going to look for a mortal.”

“And you were going to do it yourself. And look how well that turned out.”

“Excellently,” Mairon retorted. “I am very happy with the end result.”

Gandalf laughed. “And I am happy for you, old friend. But I do not think you can have realized how uncomfortable it was around here when Lord Melkor was brooding with concern, as happened roughly every three days.”

“He knew where I was going!” Mairon objected.

“Yes, and he did not stop you, because he has a healthy respect for your abilities. This did not keep him from brooding, and every time he brooded, a new snowstorm blew down out of the north. It has been entirely too cold around here.”

“You are insufferable,” Mairon told him. “I wish you well of all your mortals and your wandering.”

“And I suppose you are going to settle down?” Gandalf prodded.

“Well…” Mairon looked out across the hills and valleys of Middle Earth. “Perhaps I would also like to wander,” he conceded. “At least until we find a new place to live, far away from that accursed tower. I like to have a place to call my own, though.” He thought quietly. “Perhaps it would be good for Lord Melkor to have more freedom,” he conceded. “He gets restless, else. But there—I have had another idea that I must talk over with him and Tyelpe.”

A new creature, he thought, born from the flames, that could function as a sort of walking forge. It would be very difficult to wander without a portable forge. But what ought the base creature to be? _That_ was a question for Melkor. A creature born of flame with a forge in its belly. Mairon loved the idea. He was sure that both Melkor and Tyelpe would as well.

“I am glad you are safe,” Gandalf said, and he put a hand on Mairon’s shoulder and smiled.

Mairon smiled back.


End file.
